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LIBRARY 


(53 


ENGLISH   CONFERENCES 


OF 


ESKEST  ■  RES' AW. 


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> 

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■>  >  •>  J  > 

■>  ■>  '>  ^    > ) '   ■  1 ,  ' 

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t    >          i       • 

ROME 

AND 

CHRISTIANHY. 

MARCUS 

AURELIUS. 

TRANSLATED  BY 

CLAEA  ERSKINE   CLEiMENT, 


BOSTON : 
JAMES  R.  OSGOOD  AND   COMPANY. 

1880. 


t  r    c      t      '       V      c         ct» 


UJ 


Copyright,  1880, 
Bt  JAALe's  R.  OSGOOD  &  COMPANY. 


331. C 


Franklin  Press: 

Stereotyped  and  Printed  by 

Rand,  Avery,  <5^  Co.^ 

Boston. 


COl^TEH'TS. 


PAGE. 

The  Hibbert  Conteeences. 

First  Conference.     The  Sense  in  whicli  Christianity 
is  a  Roman  Work 9 

Second   Conference.      The    Legend    of    the    Roman 
Church.  —  Peter  and  Paul 39 

Third  Conference.     Rome,  the  Centre  of  the  Forma- 
tion of  Ecclesiastical  Authority        ....      73 

Fourth  Conference.     Rome,  the  Capital  of  Catholi- 
cism     103 

The  Royal  Institution  Conference. 

Marcus  Aurelius '      .        .        .      139 


NOTE. 

The  lectures  contained  in  this  volume  were  delivered  by 
M.  Eknest  Eenan  in  London  during  April  of  the  present 
year.  The  first  four,  upon  '"Rome  and  Christianity,"  were 
given  under  the  auspices  of  "  The  Hibbert  Foundation,"  in 
response  to  an  invitation  under  which  the  distinguished 
author  visited  England.  The  fifth,  "Marcus  Aurelius,"  was 
Incidental  to  the  visit,  and  was  given  before  ''  The  Royal 
Institution."  The  word  "Conferences,"  though  somewhat 
new  to  English  usage  in  its  present 'sense,  has  been  retained 
as  best  expressing  the  author's  original  title,  ^'Conferences 
d^  Angleterre," 


EOME    AlfD    OHEISTIAlSriTT. 


riKST    CONFERENCE, 

London,  Apeil  6,  1880. 


THE    SENSE    IN  WHICH    CHRISTIANITY   IS 
A  ROMAN  WORK. 


FIEST   CONFEI^ENCE. 

THE   SENSE   IN   WHICH   CHRISTIANITY   IS   A 
EOMAN   WOEK. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  —  I  was  proud  and 
happy  to  receive  from  the  curators  of  this  noble 
institution  an  invitation  to  continue  here  an  in- 
struction inaugurated  by  my  illustrious  confrere 
and  friend,  ^lax  MilUer,  the  usefulness  of  which 
will  be  more  and  more  appreciated.  A  broad  and 
sincere  thought  always  bears  fruit.  It  is  thirty 
years  since  the  venerable  Robert  Hibbert  made  a 
legacy  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  the  progress  of 
enlightened  Christianity,  inseparable,  according  to 
his  idea,  from  the  progress  of  science  and  reason. 
Wisely  carried  out,  this  foundation  has  become,  in 
the  hands  of  intelligent  administrators,  the  centre 
of  conferences  upon  all  the  great  chapters  of 
the  history  of  religion  and  humanity :  the  pro- 
moters of  this  reform  have  asked,  with  reason, 
why  the  method  which  has  proved  good  in  all 
departments  of  intellectual  culture  should  not  also 
be  good  in  the  domain  of  religion?  why  the  pur- 
suit   of   truth,   without    regard   to    consequences. 


10  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

should  be  dangerous  in  theology,  when  it  is  ap- 
proved of  in  the  entire  domain  of  social  and 
natural  science  ?  You  believed  the  truth,  gentle- 
men, and  you  were  right.  There  is  but  one  truth ; 
and  we  are  wanting  in  respect  to  its  revelation, 
if  we  allow  that  the  critic  ought  to  soften  his 
severe  processes  when  he  treats  of  it.  No,  gentle- 
men, the  truth  is  able  to  dispense  with  compli- 
ments. I  come  gladly  at  your  call ;  for  I  under- 
stand the  duties  towards  the  right  exactly  as  you 
do.  With  you,  I  should  believe  that  I  injured  a 
faith  in  admitting  that  it  required  to  be  treated 
with  a  certain  softness.  I  believe  with  you  that 
the  worship  due  from  man  to  the  ideal  consists  in 
independent  scientific  research,  without  regard  to 
results,  and  that  the  true  manner  of  rendering 
homage  to  the  truth  is  to  pursue  it  without  ceas- 
ing, with  the  firm  resolution  of  sacrificing  all  to  it. 
You  desire  that  these  conferences  shall  present  a 
ofreat  historic  ensemble  of  the  efforts  which  the  hu- 
man  race  has  made  to  resolve  the  problems  which 
surround  it,  and  affect  its  destiny.  In  the  present 
state  of  the  human  mind,  no  one  can  hope  to 
resolve  these  problems :  we  suspect  all  dogmatism 
simply  because  it  is  dogmatism.  We  grant  will- 
ingl}^  that  a  religious  or  philosophical  system  can, 
indeed,  or  that  it  ought  to,  enclose  a  certain  por- 
tion of  truth ;  but  we  deny  to  it,  without  exam- 
ination, the  possibility  of  enclosing  the  absolute 


ROME   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  11 

truth.  What  we  love  is  history.  History  well 
written  is  always  good ;  for,  even  if  it  should 
prove  that  man  in  seeking  to  seize  the  infinite  has 
pursued  a  chimera,  the  history  of  these  attempts, 
more  generous  than  successful,  will  always  be  use- 
ful. It  proves,  that,  in  reality,  man  goes  beyond 
the  circle  of  his  limited  life  through  his  aspira- 
tions. It  shows  what  energy  he  has  expended  for 
the  sake  of  his  love  of  the  good  and  true ;  it 
teaches  us  to  estimate  him,  — this  poor  disinherited 
one,  who,  in  addition  to  the  sufferings  which  na- 
ture imposes  upon  him,  imposes  still  further  upon 
himself  the  torture  of  the  unknown,  the  torture  of 
doubt,  the  severe  resistances  of  virtue,  the  absti- 
nences of  austerity,  the  voluntary  sufferings  of  the 
ascetic.  Is  all  this  a  pure  loss?  Is  this  unceasing 
effort  to  attain  the  unattainable  as  vain  as  the 
course  of  the  child  who  pursues  the  ever  flying 
object  of  his  desire  ?  It  pains  me  to  believe  it ; 
and  the  faith  which  eludes  me  when  I  examine 
in  detail  each  of  the  systems  scattered  throughout 
the  world,  I  find,  in  a  measure,  when  I  reflect  upon 
all  these  systems  together.  All  religions  may 
be  defective  and  incomplete  ;  religion  in  humanity 
is  nothing  less  than  divine,  and  a  mark  of  superior 
destiny.  No,  they  have  not  labored  in  vain  —  those 
grand  founders,  those  reformers,  those  prophets  of 
all  ages  —  who  have  protested  against  the  false 
evidences  of  gross  materialism,  who  have  beaten 


12  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

themselves  against  the  wall  of  the  apparent  fa- 
tality that  encloses  us ;  who  have  emploj^ecl  their 
thought,  given  their  life,  for  the  accomplishment  oi 
a  mission  which  the  sj)irit  of  their  age  had  imposed 
upon  them.  If  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  the 
martyrs  does  not  prove  the  exclusive  truth  of  this 
or  that  sect  (all  sects  can  show  a  rich  martyrology), 
this  fact  in  general  proves  that  religious  zeal  re- 
sponds to  something  mj^sterious.  All,  —  as  many 
as  we  are,  —  we  are  sons  of  martyrs.  Those  who 
talk  the  most  of  scepticism  are  frequently  the  most 
satisfied  and  indifferent.  Those  who  have  founded 
among  you  religious  and  political  liberty,  those 
who  have  founded  in  all  Europe  liberty  of  thought 
and  research,  those  who  have  labored  for  the 
amelioration  of  the  fate  of  men,  those  who  will 
doubtless  'find  means  for*'  further  amelioration, 
have  suffered,  or  will  suffer,  for  their  good  work ; 
for  no  one  is  ever  recompensed  for  what  he  does 
for  the  good  of  humanity.  Nevertheless  they 
will  always  have  imitators.  There  will  always 
be  some  to  carry  on  the  v/ork  of  the  incor- 
rigibles ;  some,  possessed  of  the  divine  spirit,  who 
will  sacrifice  their  personal  interest  to  truth  and 
justice.  Be  it  so :  they  have  chosen  the  better 
part.  I  know  not  what  assures  me  that  he  who, 
without  knowing  why,  through  simple  nobility  of 
nature,  has  chosen  for  himself  in  this  world  the 
essentially  unproductive  lot  of  doing  good,  is  the 


ROME   AND    CHRISTIANITY.  13 

true  sage,  and  has  discovered  the  legitunate  use  of 
life  with  more  sagacity  than  the  selfish  man. 

I. 

You  have  asked  me  to  retrace  before  you  one 
of  those  pages  of  religious  history  which  places 
the  thoughts  which  I  come  to  express  in  their 
fullest  aspect.  The  origins  of  Cliristianity  form 
the  most  heroic  episode  in  the  history  of  humanity. 
Man  never  drew  from  his  heart  more  devotion, 
more  love  of  the  ideal,  than  in  the  one  hundred 
and  fifty  3'ears  which  elapsed  from  the  sweet 
Galilean  vision,  under  Tiberius,  to  the  death  of 
Marcus  Aurelius.  The  religious  consciousness 
was  never  more  eminently  creative,  and  never 
laid  down  with  more  authority  the  law  of  the 
future.  This  extraordinary  movement,  to  which 
no  other  can  be  compared,  came  forth  from  the 
bosom  of  Judaism.  But  it  is  doubtful  if  Judaism 
alone  would  have  conquered  the  world.  It  was 
necessary  that  a  young  and  bold  school,  coming 
out  of  its  midst,  should  take  the  audacious  part 
of  renouncing  the  largest  portion  of  the  Mosaic 
ritual.  It  was  necessary,  above  all,  that  the  new 
movement  should  be  transported  into  the  midst  of 
the  Greeks  and  Latins,  while  awaiting  the  Barba- 
rians, and  become  like  yeast  in  the  bosom  of  those 
European  i:aces-b.Y^ which  humanity  accomplishes 


14  ENGLISH   CONFEBENCES. 

its  destinies.  What  a  beautiful  subject  he  will 
discourse  upon  who  shall  one  day  explain  to  you 
the  part  which  Greece  took  in  that  great  common 
work!  You  have  commissioned  me  to  show  to 
you  the  part  of  Rome.  The  action  of  Rome  is 
the  first  in  date.  It  was  scarcely  until  the  begin- 
ning of  the  third  century  that  the  Greek  genius, 
with  Clement  of  Alexandria  and  Origen,  really 
seized  upon  Christianity.  I  hope  to  show  you, 
that,  since  the  second  century,  Rome  has  exercised 
a  decisive  influence  upon  the  Church  of  Jesus. 

In  one  sense,  Rome  has  diffused  religion  through 
the  world,  as  she  has  diffused  civilization,  as  she 
has   founded  the   idea  of  a   central   government, 
extending  itself   over  a  considerable  part  of  the 
world.     But  even  as  the  civilization  Avhich  Rome"^ 
has    diffused    has    not   been   the    small,    narrow,  j 
austere   culture    of  ancient   Latium,  but   in   fact  ( 
the   grand   and   large    civilization   which    Greece 
created,    so  the  religion  to  which   she    definitely 
lent  her  support  was  not  the  niggardl}'  supersti- 
tion which  was  sufficient  to  the  rude  and  primitive 
inhabitants  of  the  Palatine :  it  was  Judaism,  that 
is  to  say,  in  fact,  the  religion  which  Rome  scorned  V 
and  hated   most,  that  which  two  or  three   times 
she  believed  herself  to  have  finally  vanquished  to 
the  profit  of  her  own  national  worship.     This  an- 
cient religion  of  Latium,  which  contented  a  race 
endowed  with  narrow  intellectual  wajits  and  mor- 


EOME   AND    CHRISTIANITY.  15 

als,  among  which  customs  and  social  rank  almost 
held  the  place  of  a  religion  during  some  centuries, 
was  a  sufficiently  despicable  thing.     As  M.  Bois- 
sier  has  perfectly  proved,  a  more  false  conception 
of  the  divinity  was  never  seen.      In  the  Roman 
worship,  as  in  most  of  the    ancient   Italiote  wor- 
ships, prayer  was  a  magic  formula,  acting  by  its  owti 
virtue,  independent  of   the  moral   dispositions  of 
him  who  prayed.     People  prayed  only  for  a  selfish 
end.     There  exist   some   registers  called  indlgita- 
menta,  containing  lists  of  the  gods  who  supply  all 
the  wants  of  men  ;  thus  there  was  no  need  of  being 
deceived.     If  the  god  vv^as  not  addressed  by  his 
true  name,  by  that  under  which  it  pleased  him  to 
be  invoked,  he  was  capable   of   misapprehension, 
or  of  interpreting  capriciously.     Now  these  gods, 
who  are  in  some  degree  the  forces  of  the  w^orld, 
are   innumerable.      There  was    a   little   god  who 
made  the  infant  utter  his  first   cry  ( Vaticcmus)  ; 
there   was   another   who   presided    over   liis   first 
word  (FahuUnus')  ;  another  who  taught  the  baby 
to  eat  {Educa)  ;  another  who  taught  him  to  drink 
(^Potinci)  ;  another  who  made   him  keep  quiet  in 
his  cradle   (Cuba).      In   truth,  the  good  wife    of 
Petronius   was  right,  when,    in   speaking   of  the 
Campagna,  she  said,  "  This  country  is  so  peopled 
with  divinities,  that  it  is  easier  to  find  a  god  than 
a  man."    Besides  these,  there  were  unending  series 
of  allegories,    or   deified   abstractions.    Fear,   the 


16  ENGLISH   CONFEBENCES. 

Cougli,  Fever,  IManly  Fortune,  Patrician  Chastity, 
Plebeian  Chastity,  the  Security  of  the  Age,  the 
Genius  of  the  Customs  (or  of  the  octroi'),  and 
above  all  (listen,  that  one  who,  to  say  the  truth, 
vras  the  great  god  of  Rome),  the  Safety  of  the 
Roman  People.  It  was  a  civil  religion  in  the  full 
force  of  the  term.  It  was  essentially  the  religion 
of  the  State.  There  was  no  priesthoad  distinct 
from  the  functions  of  the  State:  the  State  w<x» 
the  veritable  god  of  Rome.  The  father  had  there 
the  right  of  life  and  death  over  his  son ;  but  if 
this  son  had  the  least  function,  and  the  father 
met  him  in  his  path,  he  descended  from  his  horse, 
and  bent  himself  before  him. 

The  consequence  of  this  essentially  political 
character  v/as,  that  the  Roman  religion  remained 
always  an  aristocratic  religion.  A  man  became 
pontiff  as  he  became  prsetor  or  consul.  When  a 
man  desired  these  religious  functions,  he  submitted 
to  no  examination ;  he  went  into  no  retreat  in  a 
semmary ;  he  did  not  ask  himself  whether  he  had 
the  ecclesiastical  vocation :  he  proved  that  he 
had  served  his  country  well,  and  that  he  had  been 
wounded  in  a  certain  battle.  There  was  no  sacer- 
dotal spirit.  These  civil  pontiffs  remained  cold, 
practical  men,  and  had  not  the  least  idea  that 
their  functions  should  separate  them  from  the 
world.  The  religion  of  Rome  is,  in  every  respect, 
the  inversion  of  theocracy.     Civil  law  rules  acts ; 


BOME    AND   CHRISTIANITY.  17 

it  does  not  trouble  itself  with  thoughts ;  thus  did 
the  Roman  religion.  Rome  never  had  the  least 
idea  of  dogma.  The  exact  observation  of  the 
rites  commanded  by  the  divinity,  in  which  it  did 
not  regard  piety  or  the  sentiments  of  the  heart,  if 
the  request  was  in  form,  was  all  that  Avas  re- 
quired. Even  more,  —  devotion  was  a  fault ;  calm- 
ness, order,  regularity,  only,  were  necessary :  more 
than  that  was  an  excess  (^superstitio^ .  Cato  ab- 
solutely forbade  that  a  slave  should  be  allowed 
to  conceive  any  sentiment  of  piety.  "  Know," 
said  he,  "that  it  is  the  master  who. sacrifices  for 
all  the  household."  It  was  not  needful  to  neglect 
what  was  due  to  the  gods ;  but  it  was  not  needful 
to  give  them  more  than  was  due  :  that  was  super- 
stition, of  which  the  true  Roman  had  as  much  hor- 
ror as  of  impiety. 

Was  there  ever,  I  ask  you,  a  religion  less  capable 
of  becoming  the  religion  of  the  human  race  than 
that  ?  Not  only  was  the  access  to  the  priesthood 
for  a  long  time  forbidden  to  the  plebeians,  but 
they  were  also  excluded  .from  the  public  worship. 
In  the  great  struggle  for  civil  equality  which  fills 
the  history  of  Rome,  religion  is  the  great  argu- 
ment with  which  the  revolutionists  are  opposed. 
"  How,"  say  they,  "  could  you  become  a  praetor 
or  consul  ?  You  have  not  the  right  to  take  the 
omens."  Above  all,  the  people  were  very  little 
attached  to  religion.     Each   popular  victory  was 


18  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

followed,  as  one  may  say,  by  an  anti-clerical 
re-action :  on  the  contrary,  the  aristocracy  re- 
mained always  faithful  to  a  worship  which  gave  a 
divine  sanction  to  its  privileges. 

The  matter  became  still  more  pressing  when  the 
Roman  people,  by  their  manly,  patriotic  virtues, 
had  conquered  all  the  nations  upon  the  borders  of 
the  Mediterranean.  What  interest,  think  you  an 
African,  a  Gaul,  a  Syrian,  took  in  a  worship  which 
concerned  only  a  small  number  of  high  and  often 
tyrannical  families?  The  local  religions  were 
continued  everywhere ;  but  Augustus,  who  was 
still  more  a  religious  organizer  than  a  great  politi- 
cian, made  the  Roman  idea  to  hover  everywhere 
by  the  establishment  of  the  Roman  worship.  The 
altars  of  Rome  and  of  Augustus  became  the  centre 
of  a  hierarchical  organization  of  Flamens  and 
Augustan  Sevirs^  who  served  to  found,  more  than 
one  imagines,  the  divisions  of  the  dioceses  and 
ecclesiastical  provinces.  Augustus  admitted  all 
the  local  gods  as  Lares ;  he  allowed  more  than  the 
number  of  Lares  in  each  house ;  at  each  cross-road 
an  additional  Lare  was  placed,  —  the  Genius  of  the 
Emperor.  Thanks  to  this  fellowship,  all  the  local 
gods  and  all  the  special  gods  became  "  Augustan 
gods."  It  was  a  great  advance.  But  this  grand 
attempt  of  the  worship  of  the  Roman  State  was 
notoriously  insufficient  to  satisfy  the  religious 
needs  of  the  heart.     There  was  elsewhere  a  god 


ROME   AND    CHRISTIANITY.  19 

who  could  not  accommodate  himself  in  any  way 
to  this  fraternity:  it  was  the  God  of  the  Jews. 
It  was  impossible  to  make  Jehovah  pass  for  a 
Lare,  and  associate  with  the  Genius  of  the  Emper- 
or. It  was  evident  that  a  conflict  must  be  es- 
tablished between  the  Roman  State  and  this 
unchangeable  and  refractory  God,  who  did  not 
bend  to  the  complaisant  transformations  exacted 
by  the  politics  of  the  times. 

Ah,  well !  behold  the  most  extraordinary  histori- 
cal phenomenon,  the  most  intense  irony  of  all 
history ;  it  is  that  the  worship  which  Rome  has 
diffused  through  the  world  is  not  in  the  least  the 
old  worship  of  Jupiter  Capitolinus,  or  Latiaris, 
still  less  the  worship  of  Augustus  and  of  the 
Genius  of  the  Emperor :  it  is,  in  truth,  the  worship 
of  Jehovah.  It  is  Judaism  in  its  Christian  form 
that  Rome  has  propagated,  without  wishing  it,  in 
so  powerful  a  manner,  that,  from  a  certain  epoch, 
Romanism  and  Christianity  have  become  almost 
synonymous  words. 

Truly,  I  repeat  it,  it  is  more  than  doubtful  if 
pure  Judaism  —  that  which  is  developed  under  the 
Talmudical  form,  and  which  is  still  in  our  day  so 
powerful  —  would  have  had  this  extraordinary 
fortune.  Judaism  propagates  itself  through  Chris- 
tianity. But  one  understands  nothing  of  religious 
history  (some  one,  I  hope,  will  demonstrate  it  to 
yo;i  some  day),  unless  it  is  fixed  as  a  fundamental 


20  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

principle  that  Christianity  had  its  origin  in  Juda- 
ism itself,  —  Judaism  with  its  fruitful  principles 
of  alms  and  charit}^  with  its  absolute  confidence 
in  the  future  of  humanity,  with  that  joy  of  the 
heart  of  which  it  has  always  had  the  secret, — 
only  Judaism  freed  from  some  observances  and 
distinctive  traits  which  had  been  invented  to  char- 
acterize the  special  religion  of  the  children  of 
Israel. 

II. 

If  one  studies  in  fact  the  progress  of  the  primi 
tive  Christian  missions,  he  remarks  that  they  are 
all  directed  towards  the  "West:  in  other  words,  they 
take  the  Roman  Empire  as  their  theatre  and  limit. 
If  one  excepts  some  small  portions  of  the  vassal 
territory  of  the  ArsacidtB,  lying  between  the  Eu- 
phrates and  the  Tigris,  the  emj)ire  of  the  Parthi- 
ans  received  no  Christian  missions  during  the  first 
century.  The  Tigris  was  an  eastern  boundary 
which  Christianity  did  not  pass  under  the  Sassani- 
dse.  Two  great  causes  —  the  Mediterranean  and 
the  Roman  Empire  —  determined  this  capital  fact. 

The  Mediterranean  had  been,  during  a  thousand 
years,  the  great  route  on  which  all  civilizations 
and  all  ideas  had  passed  each  other.  The  Romans, 
having  freed  it  from  piracy,  had  made  it  an  un- 
equalled way  of  communication.  It  was  in  a  sense 
the  railroad  of  that  time.     A  numerous  marine  x)f 


ROME   AND    CHUISTIANITY.  21 

coasting-vessels  rendered  the  voyages  along  the 
borders  of  this  great  lake  very  easy.  The  relative 
security  which  the  routes  of  the  empire  afforded, 
the  sure  guaranties  found  in  the  public  powers,  the 
scattering  of  the  Jews  over  all  the  coasts  of 
the  Mediterranean,  the  use  of  the  Greek  tongue 
in  the  eastern  portion  of  this  sea,  the  unity  of 
civilization  which  the  Greeks  first,  and  then  the 
Romans,  had  created,  made  the  map  of  the  empire 
also  the  map  of  the  countries '  reserved  to  the 
Christian  missions  and  destined  to  become  Chris- 
tian. The  Roman  orhis  became  the  Christian  orhis 
in  the  sense  in  which  it  may  be  said  that  the 
founders  of  the  empire  were  the  founders  of  the 
Christian  monarchy,  or,  at  least,  that  they  have 
drawn  its  outlines.  Every  province  conquered  by 
the  Roman  Empire  became  a  province  conquered 
by  Christianity.  Let  the  figures  of  the  apostles 
be  imagined  in  the  presence  of  Asia  Minor,  of 
Greece,  of  Italy  divided  into  a  hundred  little  re- 
publics, of  Gaul,  of  Spain,  of  Africa,  of  Egypt, 
with  its  old  national  institutions,  and  their  success 
can  no  more  be  thought  of,  or  rather  it  would 
seem  that  their  project  could  never  have  had  birth. 
The  union  of  the  empire  was  the  necessary  pre- 
liminary  condition  of  all  great  religious  propagaii- 
dism,  placing  it  above  nationalities.  The  empire 
recognized  this  in  the  fourth  century.  It  became 
Christian.     It  Siaw  that  Christianity  was  the  reli- 


22  EiTGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

gion  which  it  had  accepted  without  knowing  it,  — 
the  religion  limited  by  its  frontiers,  identified  with 
it,  capable  of  bringing  it  a  second  life. 

The  Church,  on  its  side,  made  itself  entirely 
Roman,  and  has  remained  to  this  day  a  fragment  of 
the  empire.  During  the  middle  ages  the  Church 
was  the  old  Rome,  seizing  again  its  authority  over 
the  barbarians,  imposing  on  them  its  decretals,  as 
formerly  it  had  imposed  its  laws,  governing  them 
by  its  cardinals,  as  it  had  before  governed  through 
its  imperial  legates  and  proconsuls. 

In  creating  its  vast  empire,  Rome  imposed,  then, 
the  material  condition  of  the  propagation  of  Chris- 
tianity. She  raised  up,  above  all,  the  moral  state 
which  served  as  an  atmosphere  and  a  medium  for 
the  new  doctrine.  While  destroying  politics  every- 
where, it  created  what  may  be  called  socialism  and 
relidon.  At  the  close  of  the  frightful  wars  which 
for  some  centuries  had  rent  the  world,  the  empire 
had  an  era  of  prosperity  and  of  welfare  such  as 
it  had  never  known :  we  may  even  be  permitted 
to  add  (without  a  paradox)  liberty.  Liberty  of 
thought,  at  least,  increased  under  this  new  regime. 
This  liberty  is  often  more  prosperous  under  a 
king  or  a  prince  than  under  the  jealous  and  nar- 
row-minded plebeian.  The  ancient  republics  did 
not  have  it.  The  Greeks  did  great  things  with- 
out it,  thanks  to  the  incomparable  power  of  their 
genius ;  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Athens 


ROME   AND    CHRISTIANITY.  23 

had  a  fine  and  noble  Inquisition.  The  king  Archon 
was  the  inquisitor  ;  the  royal  Portico  was  the  holy- 
office  in  which  the  accusations  of  impiety  were 
adjudged.  These  were  the  cases  in  which  the 
Attic  orators  were  most  frequently  engaged.  Not 
only  philosophical  crimes,  such  as  the  denial  of 
God  or  of  a  Providence,  but  the  lightest  attaint 
of  the  municipal  worship,  the  preaching  of  strange 
religions,  the  most  puerile  infractions  of  the  scru- 
pulous legislation  of  the  mysteries,  were  crimes 
guilty  of  death.  The  gods  whom  Aristophanes 
mocked  on  the  stage  sometimes  destroyed.  They 
destroyed  Socrates  ;  they  failed  to  kill  Alcibiades. 
Anaxagoras,  Protagoras,  Diagoras  of  Melas,'Prodi- 
cus  of  Ceos,  Stilpo,  Aristotle,  Theophrastus,  Aspa- 
sia,  Euripides,  were  more  or  less  seriously  dis- 
turbed. Liberty  of  thought  was,  in  truth,  the 
fruit  of  the  royalties  resulting  from  the  Macedo- 
nian conquest.  It  was  the  Attali,  the  Ptolemies, 
who  first  gave  to  men  of  thought  the  freedom 
which  no  one  of  the  old  republics  had  ever  offered 
them.  The  Roman  Empire  held  to  the  same  tra- 
ditions. There  was  under  the  empire  more  than 
one  arbitrary  law  against  the  philosophers ;  but 
these  always  resulted  from  their  meddling  with 
political  affairs.  In  the  laws  of  the  Romans,  before 
the  time  of  Constantine,  no  clause  is  found  against 
the  liberty  of  thought ;  in  the  liistory  of  the  em- 
perors, no  process  of  abstract  doctrine.     No  savant 


24  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

was  disturbed  in  liis  researches.  Men  whom  the 
middle  ages  would  have  burned,  such  as  Galen,  Lu- 
cian,  Plotinius,  lived  tranquilly,  protected  by  law. 
The  empire  inaugurated  a  period  of  liberty  in  the 
sense  that  it  destroyed  the  absolute  sovereignty 
of  the  famil}^,  the  city,  the  tribe,  and  replaced 
or  modified  these  sovereignties  by  those  of  the 
State.  Now,  an  absolute  power  is  as  much  more 
vexatious  as  the  circle  in  which  it  is  exercised  is 
more  narrow.  The  ancieiit  republics,  the  feudali- 
ties, tyrannized  over  the  individual  much  more 
than  did  the  State.  Unquestionably  the  Roman 
EmjDire  persecuted  Christianity  severely  at  times  ; 
but  at  least  it  did  not  destroy  it.  Now  the  repub- 
lics would  have  rendered  it  impossible.  Judaism, 
if  it  had  not  been  under  the  Roman  authority, 
would  have  stifled  it.  It  was  the  Roman  mas^is- 
trates  who  hindered  the  Pharisees  from  killing 
Christianity.  Some  lofty  ideas  of  universal 
brotherhood  —  results,  in  the  main,  of  stoicism,  — 
a  sort  of  general  sentiment  of  humanity,  were  the 
fruit  of  the  least  narrow  regime  and  of  the  least 
exclusive  education  to  which  the  individual  was 
submitted.  The  people  dreamed  of  a  new  era  and 
new  worlds.  The  public  riches  were  great ;  and, 
in  spite  of  the  imperfection  of  the  economical 
doctrines  of  the  time,  there  was  general  comfort. 

General  customs  were  not  such  as  are  often  ima- 
gined.   It  is  true,  that,  in  Rome,  all  the  vices  were 


EOME  AN-D  CHRISTIANITY.  25 

publicly  displayed  with  a  revolting  cynicism  :  the 
spectacles,  above  all,  had  introduced  a  frightful 
corruption.  Certain  countries,  as  Egypt,  had  de- 
scended to  the  lowest  baseness.  But  there  existed 
in  most  of  the  provinces  a  middle  class,  in  which 
goodness,  conjugal  fidelity,  the  domestic  virtues, 
and  uprightness  were  commonly  practised.  Does 
there  anjr^here  exist,  in  a  world  of  honest  people 
in  small  villages,  an  ideal  of  family  life  more 
charming  than  that  which  Plutarch  has  left  us? 
What  good  fellowship  !  What  sweetness  qf  man- 
ners !  What  chaste  and  attractive  simplicity  ! 
Chgeronea  was  evidently  not  the  only  place  where 
life  was  so  pure  and  so  innocent. 

The  customs,  even  outside  of  Rome,  were  still 
somewhat  cruel,  either  through  the  remaining 
spirit  of  ancient  manners,  everywhere  sanguinary, 
or  through  the  special  influence  of  Roman  harsh- 
ness. But  there  was  progress  during  this  period. 
What  sweet  and  pure  sentiment,  what  feeling  of 
melancholy  tenderness,  has  not  found  expression 
by  the  pen  of  Virgil  or  of  Tibullus?  The  world 
unbent,  lost  its  ancient  severity,  and  acquired 
some  softness  and  tenderness.  Some  maxims  for 
humanity  were  spread  abroad.  Equality  and  the 
abstract  idea  of  the  rights  of  man  were  boldly 
preached  by  stoicism.  Woman  became  more  and 
more  the  mistress  of  herself.  The  precepts  for  the 
treatment  of  slaves  were  improved.    The  slave  was 


26  .        ENGLISH  CONFEEENCES. 

no  longer  that  necessarily  grotesque  and  wicked 
being  which  the  Latin  comedy  introduced  in  order 
to  provoke  bursts  of  laughter,  and  whom  Cato 
recommended  to  be  treated  as  a  beast  of  burden. 
Now,  times  are  much  changed.  The  slave  is  mor- 
ally equal  to  his  master:  it  is  admitted  that  he 
is  capable  of  virtue,  of  fidelity,  of  devotion,  and 
he  gives  proofs  of  it.  The  i^rejudices  concerning 
noble  birth  grow  less.  Some  very  humane  and  just 
laws  are  made,  even  under  the  worst  emperors. 
Tiberius  was  a  skilful  financier  :  he  founded  upon 
an  excellent  basis  an  establishment  of  credit  fon- 
der. Nero  inaugurated  in  the  system  of  taxation, 
until  then  unjust  and  barbarous,  some  improve- 
ments which  shame  even  our  own  time.  Legisla- 
tion was  considerably  advanced,  while  the  punish- 
ment of  death  was  stupidly  prodigal.  Love  of  the 
poor,  sympathy  for  all,  and  almsgiving,  came  to  be 
considered  virtues. 

III. 

Unquestionably  I  understand  and  share  the 
indignation  of  sincere  liberals  against  a  govern- 
ment which  diffused  a  frightful  despotism  over  the 
world.  But  is  it  our  fault  that  the  wants  of  hu 
manity  are  diverse,  its  aspirations  manifold,  its 
aims  contradictory?  Politics  is  not  every  thing 
here  below.  What  the  world  desired,  after  those 
frightful  butcheries  of  the  earlier  centuries,  was 


KOME   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  27 

gentleness,  humanity.  They  had  enough  of  hero- 
ism :  those  vigorous  goddesses,  eternally  brandish- 
ing their  spears  on  the  height  of  the  Acropolis, 
inspired  sentiment  no  longer.  The  earth,  as  in 
the  time  of  Cadmus,  had  swallowed  her  most  noble 
sons.  The  proud  Grecian  races  had  killed  each 
other.  The  Peloponessus  was  a  desert.  The 
sweet  voice  of  Virgil  gently  took  up  the  cry  of 
humanity,  peace,  pity ! 

The  establishment  of  Christianity  responded  to 
this  cry  of  all  tender  and  weary  souls.  Chris- 
tianity could  only  have  had  birth  and  expansion 
in  a  time  when  there  were  no  longer  free  cities. 
If  there  was  any  thing  totally  lacking  in  the 
founders  of  the  Church,  it  was  patriotism.  They 
were  not  cosmopolites,  for  the  entire  planet  was  to 
them  a  place  of  exile :  they  were  idealists  in  the 
most  absolute  sense. 

A  country  is  a  composition  of  soul  and  body. 
The  soul  is  the  souvenirs,  the  legends,  the  cus- 
toms, the  misfortunes,  the  hopes,  the  common 
sorrows :  the  body  is  the  soil,  the  race,  the  lan- 
guage, the  mountains,  the  rivers,  the  characteristic, 
productions.  Now,  was  a  people  ever  more  want- 
ing in  all  this  than  the  first  Christians?  They 
did  not  cling  to  Judaea  ;  after  a  few  years  they  had 
forgotten  Galilee ;  the  glory  of  Greece  and  Rome 
was  indifferent  to  them.  The  countries  in  wdiich 
Christianity  was  first  established  —  Syria,  Cyprus, 


28  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

and  Asia  Minor  —  no  longer  remembered  the  time 
when  they  were  free.  Greece  and  Eome,  it  is 
true,  still  had  a  grand  national  sentiment.  At 
Rome,  patriotism  survived  in  a  few  families ;  in 
Greece,  Christianity  flourished  only  at  Corinth,  —  a 
city  which,  since  its  destruction  by  Mummius,  and 
its  reconstruction  by  Csesar,  was  the  resort  of  men 
of  all  races.  The  true  Greek  countries,  then,  as 
to-day,  very  jealous,  very  much  absorbed  in  the 
memories  of  their  past,  gave  little  countenance  to 
the  new  doctrines:  they  were  always  lukewarm 
Christians.  On  the  contrary,  those  gay,  indolent, 
voluptuous  countries  of  Asia  and  S^^ria,  countries 
of  pleasure,  of  free  manners,  de  laisser  aller^  accuS' 
tomed  to  receive  life  and  government  from  others, 
had  nothing  to  resign  in  the  way  of  pride  and 
traditions.  The  most  ancient  capitals  of  Christi- 
anity—  Antioch,  Ephesus,  Thessalonica,  Corinth, 
and  Rome  —  were  common  cities,  so  to  speak,  cities 
of  the  modern  type  of  Alexandria,  in  which  all 
races  met,  where  that  marriage  between  man  and 
the  soil,  which  constitutes  a  nation,  was  absolutely 
broken. 

The  importance  given  to  social  questions  is 
always  the  inverse  of  political  pre-occupations. 
Socialism  takes  the  lead  when  patriotism  grows 
weak.  Christianity  exploded  the  social  and  re- 
ligious ideas,  as  was  inevitable,  since  Augustus 
had  put  an  end  to  political  struggles.     Christian- 


E0:ME   and   CHRISTIANITY.  29 

ity,  if  a  universal  worship,  would,  like  Islamism, 
in  reality  be  the  enemy  of  nationalities.  Only 
centuries,  only  schisms,  could  form  national 
churches  from  a  religion  which  was  from  the  be- 
ginning a  denial  of  all  terrestrial  countries,  which 
had  its  birth  at  an  epoch  in  which  there  were  no 
longer  in  the  world  either  cities  or  citizens,  and 
which  the  old  and  powerful  republics  of  Italy  and 
of  Greece  would  surely  have  expelled  as  a  mortal 
poison  to  the  State. 

And  here  was  one  of  the  causes  of  the  grandeur 
of  the  new  religion.  Humanity  is  a  multiform, 
changeable  thing,  tormented  by  conflictmg  desires. 
La  patrie  is  grand,  and  the  heroes  of  Marathon 
and  Thermopylae  are  saints.  But  one's  country 
is  not  all  here  below :  one  is  a  man  and  a  son  of 
God,  before  he  is  a  Frenchman,  or  a  German. 
The  kingdom  of  God,  an  eternal  dream  wliich  is 
never  destroyed  in  the  heart  of  man,  is  a  protes- 
tation against  a  too  exclusive  patriotism.  The 
thought  of  an  organization  of  humanity,  in  view 
of  its  greatest  happiness  and  its  moral  ameliora- 
tion, is  legitimate.  The  State  knows,  and  can 
only  know,  one  thing,  —  to  organize  a  collective 
egoism.  This  is  not  indifference,  because  egoism 
is  the  most  powerful  and  seizable  of  human 
motives,  but  is  not  sufficient.  The  governments 
which  have  rested  upon  the  supposition  that  man 
is  composed  of  covetous  instincts  only,  have  de- 


so  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

ceived  themselves.  Devotion  is  as  natural  as 
egoism  to  a  true-born  man.  The  organization  of 
devotion  is  religion:  let  no  one  hope,  then,  to 
dispense  with  religion,  or  religious  associations. 
Each  progression  of  modern  society  will  render 
this  want  more  imjDerious. 

A  great  exaltation  of  religious  senthnent  was, 
then,  the  consequence  of  the  Roman  peace  estab- 
lished by  Augustus.  Augustus  realized  it.  But  I 
ask.  What  satisfaction  could  the  institutions  which 
Rome  dared  to  believe  eternal  present  to  the  re- 
ligious wants  which  were  arising  ?  Surely  almost 
nothing.  All  the  old  worships,  of  very  different 
origin,  had  one  common  trait.  They  shared 
equally  the  impossibility  of  reaching  a  theological 
teaching,  a  practical  morality,  an  edifying  preach- 
ing, a  pastoral  ministry  truly  fruitful  for  the 
people.  The  Pagan  temple,  in  its  best  time,  was 
the  same  thing  as  the  synagogue  and  the  church : 
I  wish  to  say  the  common  house,  the  school,  the 
inn,  the  hospital,  the  shelter  in  which  the  poor 
sought  an  asylum,  it  was  a  cold  cella^  into  which  one 
seldom  entered,  where  one  learned  nothing.  The 
affectation  which  led  the  Roman  patricians  to  dis- 
tinguish the  "  religion,"  that  is  to  say,  their  own 
worship,  from  the  "  superstition,"  that  is  to  say, 
the  worship  of  strangers,  appears  to  us  puerile. 
All  the  Pagan  worships  were  essentially  supersti- 
tious.    The  peasant  who  in  our  day  places  a  sou 


KOME  AND   CHUISTIANITY.  ^         31 

in  the  box  of  a  miraculous  cliapel,  who  invokes 
some  saint  on  account  of  his  oxen,  or  his  horses, 
who  drinks  certain  waters  fo^.  certain  maladies,  is 
in  these  acts  a  Pagan.  Indeed,  nearly  all  our 
superstitions  are  the  remains  of  a  religion  anterior 
to  Christianity,  which  that  has  not  been  able  to 
entirely  uproot.  If  one  would  find  the  image  of 
Paganism  in  our  day,  it  must  be  sought  in  some 
obscure  village  in  the  depth  of  some  out-of-the- 
way  country. 

Having  as  guardians  a  .popular,  vacillating  tra- 
dition, and  selfish  sacristans,  the  Pagan  religion 
could  but  degenerate  in  worship.  Augustus,  al- 
though with  a  certain  reserve,  accepted  the  ado- 
ration of  his  subjects  in  the  provmces.  Tiberius 
allowed,  under  his  own  eyes,  that  ignoble  con- 
course of  the  cities  of  Asia  to  dispute  the  honor 
of  raising  a  temple  to  him.  The  extravagant  kn- 
pieties  of  Caligula  produced  no  re-action :  outside 
of  Judaism  there  was  not  found  a  single  priest  to 
resist  such  follies.  Coming  forth,  for  the  most 
part,  from  a  primitive  worship  of  natural  forces 
ten  times  transformed  by  mingiings  of  all  sorts, 
and  by  the  imagination  of  the  peoples,  the  Pagan 
worships  were  limited  by  their  past.  One  could 
never  draw  from  them  what  had  never  existed  in 
tliem,  —  Deism  or  instruction.  The  fathers  of  the 
church  amuse  us  when  they  bring  to  notice  the 
misdeeds  of  Saturn  as  the  father  of  a  family,  and 


32  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

of  Jupiter  as  a  husband.  But  without  doubt,  it 
was  still  more  ridiculous  to  set  up  Jupiter  (that 
is  to  say,  the  atmosphere)  as  a  moral  god  who 
commands,  defends,  rewards,  and  punishes.  In 
a  world  which  aspires  to  possess  a  catechism, 
what  could  one  do  with  a  worship  like  that  of 
Venus,  which  arose  from  an  old  social  necessity 
of  the  first  Phoenician  navigation  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean, but  became  in  time  an  outrage  to  that 
which  one  regards  more  and  more  as  the  essence 
of  religion? 

Here  is  the  explanation  of  that  singular  attrac- 
tion, which,  towards  the  commencement  of  our  era, 
drew  the  populations  of  the  Old  World  towards  the 
worships  of  the  East.  These  worships  had  some- 
thing more  profound  than  the  Greek  and  Latin 
worships :  they  appealed,  moreover,  to  the  religious 
sentiment.  Almost  all  were  relative  to  the  state 
of  the  soul  in  another  life,  and  they  were  believed 
to  contain  some  pledges  of  immortality.  From 
this  arose  that  favor  which  the  Thracian  and  Sa- 
basian  mysteries  enjoyed,  the  worshippers  of  Bac- 
chus, and  brotherhoods  of  all  sorts.  There  was  less 
of  coldness  in  these  little  circles,  in  which  one 
pressed  against  another,  than  in  the  great  glacial 
world  elsewhere.  Some  minor  religions,  like  that 
of  Pysche,  destined  solely  to  console  for  death, 
had  immense  popularity.  Those  noble  Egyptian 
worships  which  concealed  the  emptiness  within 


ROME  Aj^D   CHRISTIANITY.  .  3 


Q 


by  grand  splendor  of  ceremonies  counted  their 
devotees  tlu^oughout  the  empire.  Isis  and  Serapis 
had  their  altars  at  the  extremities  of  the  world. 
In  visiting  the  ruins  of  PompeU,  one  would  be 
tempted  to  believe  that  the  worship  of  Isis  was 
the  principal  one  practised  there.  Those  little 
EgYptian  temples  had  some  assiduous  devotees, 
among  whom  were  counted  a  large  number  of  per- 
sons of  the  class  of  the  friends  of  Catullus  and 
Tibullus.  There  was  a  service  each  morning,  —  a 
sort  of  mass,  celebrated  by  a  tonsured  and  beard- 
less priest;  there  were  some  sprinklings  of  holy 
water,  and  perhaps  an  evening  service:  it  occu- 
pied, amused,  and  quieted.  What  more  is  neces- 
sary ? 

But,  more  than  all  others,  the  Mithraic  worship 
enjoyed  in  the  second  and  third  centuries  an 
extraordinary  popularity.  I  sometimes  allow  my- 
self to  say,  that,  had  not  Christianity  taken  the 
lead,  Mithraicism  would  have  become  the  religion 
of  the  world.  ^lithraicism  had  mysterious  re- 
unions, and  chapels  which  strongly  resembled 
little  churches.  It  established  a  very  solid  bond 
of  brotherhood  between  its  votaries;  it  had  the 
Eucharist,  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  bore  such  a 
resemblance  to  the  Christian  mysteries,  that  the 
good  Justin  the  Apologist  saw  only  one  explana- 
tion of  these  resemblances:  it  is  that  Satan,  in 
order  to  deceive  the  human  race,  sought  to  mimic 


34  ENGLISH  CONFEEENCES. 

the  Christian  ceremonies,  and  committed  tliis 
plagiarism.  The  Mithraic  tomb  of  the  Catacombs 
of  Rome  is  as  edifying  and  deeply  mysterious  as 
the  Christian  tombs.  There  were  some  devoted 
Mithraists,  who,  even  after  the  triumph  of  Christi- 
anity, defended  the  sincerity  of  their  faith  with 
courage.  The  people  grouped  themselves  around 
these  foreign  gods :  around  the  Greek  and  Italiote 
gods  there  were  no  gatherings.  We  must  say  a 
good  word  for  it :  it  is  only  the  small  sects  that  lay 
the  foundation  and  build  up.  It  is  so  sweet  to 
believe  one's  self  a  little  aristocracy  of  truth,  to 
imagine,  that,  in  common  with  a  very  few,  one 
owns  the  repository  of  truth !  Such  a  foolish  sect 
in  our  own  time  gives  to  its  adherents  more  conso- 
lation than  a  more  healthy  philosophy.  In  his  day, 
Abracadabra  secured  some  joyous  followers,  and, 
by  means  of  a  little  good-will,  a  sublime  theology 
has  been  found  in  him. 

We  shall  see,  however,  in  our  next  conference, 
that  the  religious  reign  of  the  future  belonged 
neither  to  Serapis,  nor  to  Mithra.  The  predes- 
tined religion  grew  imperceptibly  in  Judaea.  This 
would  have  greatly  astonished  the  most  sagacious 
Romans,  if  had  been  announced  to  them.  It 
would  have  been  shocking  to  them  in  the  highest 
degree,  But  so  often  in  history  have  improbable 
predictions  become  true,  so  often  has  wisdona  beeu 


ROME  AND   CHRISTIANITY.  35 

mistaken,  that  it  is  not  best  to  rely  too  much 
upon  the  likes  and  dislikes  of  enlightened  men,  of 
hons  esprits  as  we  say,  when  they  undertake  to 
predict  the  future. 


SECOND    OONFEEElsrOE, 

Lo]SDOX,  Apeil  9,  1880. 


THE  LEGEND   OF    THE  ROMAN    CHURCH. 
PETER  AND   PAUL. 


SECOND   CONFERENCE. 

PETER  AND  PAUL. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen, — At  our  last  meeting 
we  attempted  to  show  the  situation  of  the  Roman 
Empire  in  regard  to  religious  questions  during  the 
first  century.  There  was  in  the  vast  gathering  of 
populations  which  composed  the  empire  a  pressing 
want  of  religion,  a  true  moral  progress,  which 
called  for  a  pure  worship  without  superstitious 
practices  or  bloody  sacrifices  ;  a  tendency  to  Mon- 
otheism, which  made  the  old  mythological  recitals 
appear  ridiculous ;  a  general  sentiment  of  sympa- 
thy and  of  charity,  which  inspired  the  desire  of 
association,  of  assembling  together  for  prayer,  for 
support,  for  consolation,  for  the  assurance  that 
after  death  one  would  be  interred  by  his  brethren, 
who  would  also  make  a  little^feast  in  his  memory. 
Asia  Minor,  Greece,  Syria,  and  Egypt  contained 
masses  of  the  poor,  —  very  honest  men,  after  their 
manner,  humble,  and  without  distinction ;  but  re- 
volted at  the  spectacle  which  the  Roman  aristoc- 
racy made,  full  of  horror  at  those  hideous  represen- 
tations in  the  theatres,  in  which  Rome  made  a 

39 


40  ENGLISH   CONFEKENCES. 

diversion  of  suffering.  The  moral  conscience  of 
the  human  race  sent  up  an  immense  protestation, 
and  there  was  no  priest  to  interpret  it,  no  pitying 
God  to  reply  tq^  the  sighs  of  poor  suffering  hu- 
manity. Slavery,  in  spite  of  the  protestations  of 
the  sages,  remained  very  cruel.  Claudius  thought 
to  do  a  grand  and  humane  act  in  making  a  law 
that  the  master  who  should  drive  from  his  house 
an  old  and  sick  slave  should  lose  his  right  in  that 
slave,  if  he  were  cured.  How  could  gods  without 
compassion,  and  born  of  joy  and  the  primitive 
imagination,  be  expected  to  console  for  such 
evils?  A  Father  in  heaven  was  required,  who 
kept  a  record  of  the  efforts  of  man,  and  promised 
him  a  recompense.  A  future  of  justice  was  de- 
sired, in  which  the  earth  belonged  to  the  feeble 
and  the  poor.  The  assurance  was  necessary,  that, 
when  a  man  suffered,  it  was  not  an  entire  loss,  and 
that  beyond  those  sad  horizons,  veiled  by  tears, 
there  were  happy  fields  in  which  one  day  he  should 
console  himself  for  his  sorrows.  Judaism  indeed 
had  all  that.  By  the  institution  of  the  syna- 
gogues (do  not  forget,  gentlemen,  that  it  is  from 
the  synagogue  that  the  church  comes),  it  estab- 
lished association  in  the  most  powerful  form  in 
which  it  had  ever  been  realized.  In  ajDpearance, 
at  least,  the  worship  was  pure  Deism ;  no  images, 
only  scorn  and  sarcasm  for  idols.  But  that  which 
above  all  characterized  the  Jew  was  his  confidence 


KOME  AND   CHEISTIANITY.  41 

in  a  brilliant  and  liappy  future  for  humanity. 
Having  no  idea  based  upon  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  nor  upon  the  remunerations  and  punish- 
ments beyond  the  tomb,  the  Jew,  disciple  of  the 
ancient  prophet,  was  as  if  intoxicated  with  the 
sentiment  of  justice :  he  wished  justice  now  upon 
earth.  Having  little  confidence  in  the  assurances 
of  the  eternity  which  made  the  Christians  so  easily 
resigned,  the  Jew  grumbled  at  Jehovah,  reproached 
him  with  his  ignorance,  and  demanded  how  he 
could  leave  the  earth  so  long  in  the  power  of  the 
impious.  As  for  himself,  he  did  not  doubt  that 
the  earth  would  one  day  be  his,  and  that  his  law 
would  make  love  and  justice  to  reign  therein. 

In  this  struggle,  gentlemen,  the  Jew  will  be  vic- 
torious. Hope,  that  which  the  Jew  calls  the  Tiqva^ 
that  assurance  of  something  which  nothing  proves, 
but  to  which  one  attaches  himself  with  so  much 
the  more  frenzy  because  it  is  not  sure,  is  the  soul 
of  the  Jew.  His  psalms  were  like  the  continuous 
sound  of  a  harp,  filling  life  with  harmony  and  a 
melancholy  faith :  his  prophets  held  the  words  of 
eternity.  For  example,  that  second  Isaiah,  the 
prophet  of  the  captivity,  pictured  the  future  with 
more  dazzling  colors  than  man  had  ever  seen  in 
his  dreams.  The  Thora,  besides  that,  gives  the 
recipe  for  being  happy  (for  being  happy  here 
below,  I  mean),  by  observing  the  moral  law,  the 
spirit  of  the  family,  and  the  spirit  of  duty. 


42  ENGLISH  CONFEEENCES. 

I. 

The  establishment  of  the  Jews  at  Rome  dated 
nearly  sixty  years  before  Jesus  Christ.  They 
multiplied  rapidly.  Cicero  represented  it  as  an 
act  of  courage  to  dare  to  oppose  them.  Csesar 
favored  them,  and  found  them  faithful.  The  peo- 
ple detested  them,  thought  them  malevolent,  ac- 
cused them  of  forming  a  secret  society  whose  mem- 
bers were  advanced  at  any  price,  to  the  detriment 
of  others.  But  all  did  not  approve  these  super- 
ficial judgments.  The  Jews  had  as  many  friends 
as  detractors :  something  superior  was  noticeable 
in  them.  The  poor  Jewish  colporter  of  the  Tras- 
tevere  often  in  the  evening  returned  home  rich 
with  the  charities  received  from  a  pious  hand. 
Women,  above  all,  were  attracted  by  these  mission- 
aries in  rags.  Juvenal  counts  tlie  weakness  to- 
wards the  Jewish  religion  among  the  vices  of  the 
ladies  of  his  time.  The  word  of  Zachariah  was 
verified  to  the  letter :  the  world  seized  upon  the 
garments  of  the  Jews,  and  said,  "  Lead  us  to  Jeru- 
salem." 

The  principal  Jewish  quarter  of  Rome  was 
situated  bej^ond  the  Tiber,  that  is  to  say,  in  the 
poorest  and  dirtiest  part  of  the  city,  probably 
near  the  present  Porta  Portese.  There,  or  rather 
opposite  to  "the  foot  of  the  Aventine,  the  gate  of 
Rome  was  formerly  situated,  where  the  merchan- 


EOME  AND   CHRISTIANITY.  43 

dise  brouglit  from  Ostia  in  barges  was  discharged. 
It  was  a  quarter  of  Jews  and  Syrians,  —  "  nations 
born  for  servitude,"  as  Cicero  said.  The  nucleus 
of  the  Jewish  population  at  Rome  was  formed,  in 
truth,  of  freedmen,  descended,  for  the  most  part, 
from  those  prisoners  whom  Pompey  had  carried 
there.  They  had  passed  through  slavery,  without 
changing  their  religious  customs  in  the  least.  That 
which  is  admirable  in  Judaism  is  that  simplici- 
ty of  faith  which  makes  the  Jew,  ti*ansportecl  a 
thousand  leagues  from  his  country,  at  the  end  of 
several  generations,  always  a  very  Jew.  The  in- 
tercourse between  the  synagogues  of  Rome  and 
Jerusalem  was  continual.  The  first  colony  had 
been  re-enforced  with  numerous  emigrants.  These 
poor  men  disembarked  by  hundreds  at  the  Ripa, 
and  lived  together  in  the  adjacent  quarter  of  the 
Trastevere,  serving  as  street-porters,  engaged  in 
small  affairs,  exchanging  matches  for  broken 
glasses,  and  showing  to  the  proud  Italiote  popula- 
tions a  type  which  later  became  too  familiar  to 
them, — that  of  the  beggar  accomplished  in  his  art. 
A  Roman  who  respected  hunself  never  placed  his 
foot  in  these  abject  quarters.  It  was  as  a  suburb 
given  up  to  despised  classes  and  to  infectious  em- 
ployments :  the  tanneries,  the  gut-works,  the  rot- 
ting vats  were  banished  there.  These  unhappy 
people  live'd  tranquilly  enough  in  this  remote 
corner,  in  the  midst  of  bales  of  merchandise,  low 


44  ENGLISH  CONFERENCES. 

inns,  and  porters  of  manure  iSyri),  who  had  there 
their  general  headquarters.  The  police  only  en- 
tered there  when  affrays  were  bloody,  or  occurred 
too  often.  Few  quarters  of  Rome  were  so  free : 
politics  had  nothing  to  do  there.  Worship  was 
not  only  practised  there  in  ordinary  times  without 
obstacles,  but  its  propagation  was  also  accom- 
plished with  great  facility. 

Protected  by  the  disdain  which  they  inspired, 
caring  little,  moreover,  for  the  railleries  of  the 
men  of  the  world,  the  Jews  of  the  Trastevere 
led  a  very  active  religious  and  social  life.  They 
had  some  schools  of  hahamin :  nowhere  was  the 
ritual  and  ceremonial  of  the  law  observed  more 
scrupulously :  the  organization  of  the  synagogue 
was  the  most  complete  ever  known.  The  titles  of 
"  father  and  mother  "  of  the  synagogues  were  much 
prized.  Some  rich  converts  took  biblical  names; 
they  brought  their  slaves  into  the  church  with 
them,  they  had  the  Scriptures  explained  by  the 
doctors,  built  places  of  prayer,  and  manifested 
their  pride  of  the  consideration  which  they  en- 
joyed in  this  little  world.  The  poor  Jew  found 
the  means,  while  begging  with  a  trembling  voice, 
to  whisper  in  the  ear  of  the  great  Roman  lady 
some  words  of  the  law,  and  frequently  won  over 
the  matron  who  opened  to  him  her  hand  full  of 
small  coin.  To  observe  the  sabbatli  and  the 
Jewish    feasts  was    to    Horace    the   trait  which 


ROME   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  45 

classed  a  man  in  the  crowd  of  weak  minds.  The 
universal  benevolence,  the  happiness  of  reposing 
with  the  just,  the  assistance  of  the  poor,  the 
purity  of  manners,  the  gentle  acceptance  of  death 
considered  as  a  sleep,  are  some  of  the  sentiments 
which  are  found  in  the  Jewish  inscriptions,  with 
that  particular  accent  of  touching  unction,  of 
certain  hope,  which  characterizes  the  Christian 
inscriptions.  There  have  been  many  rich  and 
powerful  Jews  in  the  world,  such  as  Tiberius 
Alexander,  who  arrived  at  the  greatest  honors  of 
the?  empire,  who  exercised  two  or  three  times  the 
strongest  influence  upon  public  affairs,  and  even 
had,  to  the  great  grief  of  the  Romans,  his  statue 
in  the  Forum ;  but  those  were  not  good  Jews. 
The  Herods,  though  practising  their  worship  at 
Rome  with  much  show,  were  also  far  from  being 
true  Israelites,  even  if  their  only  sins  were  their 
relations  with  the  Pagans. 

A  world  of  ideas  was  thus  set  in  motion  on  the 
vulgar  quay  where  the  merchandise  of  the  whole 
world  was  piled  up ;  but  all  that  would  be  lost  in 
a  great  city  like  Paris.  Undoubtedly  the  proud 
patricians,  who,  in  their  promenades  on  the  Aven- 
tine,  cast  their  eyes  upon  the  other  side  of  the 
Tiber,  did  not  imagine  the  future  that  was  form- 
ing itself  in  that  little  cluster  of  poor  houses  at 
the  foot  of  Janiculum. 

Near  the  port  was  a  sort  of  lodging-house  well 


46  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

known  to  the  people  and  tlie  soldiers  under  the 
name  of  Taherna  3Ieritoria.  In  order  to  attract 
the  loungers,  a  pretended  spring  of  oil  coming  out 
of  a  rock  was  shown  there.  From  a  very  early 
time  this  spring  of  oil  was  considered  by  the 
Christians  as  symbolic :  it  was  pretended  that 
its  appearance  was  coincident  with  the  birth  of 
Jesus.  It  seems  that  later  the  Taherna  became  a 
.church.  Under  Alexander  Severus  we  find  the 
Christians  and  the  inn-keepers  in  a  contest  over  a 
place  which  formerly  had  been  public :  that  good 
emperor  gave  it  to  the  Christians.  This  is  proba- 
bly the  origin  of  the  Church  of  the  Santa  Maria 
of  the  Trastevere. 

It  is  natural  that  the  capital  should  have  fully 
accepted  the  name  of  Jesus  before  the  intermedi- 
ate countries  could  be  evangelized,  as  a  high  sum- 
mit is  lighted  up  while  the  valleys  between  it  and 
the  sun  are  still  obscure.  Rome  was  the  rendez- 
vous for  all  the  Oriental  worships,  —  the  point 
upon  the  coast  of  the  Mediterranean  with  which  the 
Syrians  had  the  most  intercourse.  They  arrived 
there  in  enormous  bands.  Like  all  the  poor  popu- 
lations rising  for  the  assault  of  the  great  cities  to 
which  they  come  to  seek  their  fortunes,  they  were 
serviceable  and  humble.  All  the  world  spoke 
Greek.  The  ancient  Roman  plebeians,  attached 
to  the  old  customs,  lost  ground  each  day,  drowned 
as  they  were  in  this  wave  of  strangers. 


BOME   AND    CHRISTIANITY.  47 

We  admit  then,  that  towards  the  year  50  of  our 
era,  some  Syrian  Jews,  ah^eady  Christians,  entered 
the  capital  of  the  empire,  and  communicated  the 
faith  which  rendered  them  happy  to  their  com- 
panions. At  this  time  no  one  suspected  that  the 
founder  of  a  second  empire  was  in  Rome,  —  a  sec- 
ond Romulus,  lodging  at  the  port  in  a  bed  of  straw. 
A  little  band  was  formed.  These  ancestors  of  the 
Roman  prelates  were  poor,  dirty,  common  people, 
without  distinction,  without  manners,  clothed  with 
fetid  garments,  having  the  bad  breath  of  men 
who  are  badly  fed.  Their  dwellings  had  that 
odor  of  misery  which  is  exhaled  from  persons 
grossly  clothed  and  nourished,  and  huddled  to- 
gether in  narrow  rooms.  We  know  the  names  of 
two  Jews  who  were  the  most  prominent  in  these 
movements.  They  were  Aquila,  a  Jew,  originally 
from  Pontus,  who  was  like  St.  Paul  an  upholsterer, 
and  Pj:iscilla  his  wife,  —  a  pious  couple.  Banished 
from  Rome  they  took  refuge  at  Corinth,  where 
they  soon  became  the  intimate  friends  of  St.  Paul, 
and  zealous  workers  with  him.  Thus  Aquila  and 
Priscilla  are  the  most  ancient  known  members  of 
the  Church  of  Rome.  There  is  scarcely  a  souve- 
nir of  them  there.  Tradition,  always  unjust,  be- 
cause it  is  always  ruled  by  political  motives,  has 
expelled  these  two  obscure  workmen  from  the 
Christian  Pantheon  in  order  to  attribute  the  honor 
of  the  foundation  of  the  Church  of  Rome  to  a 


48  ENGLISH  CONFERENCES. 

name  more  in  keeping  witli  its  proud  pretensions. 
We  do  not  see  the  original  point  of  the  origin  of 
Occidental  Christianity  in  the  theatrical  Basilica 
consecrated  to  St.  Peter :  it  is  at  that  ancient 
G-hettO',  the  Porta  Portese.  It  is  in  tracing  these 
poor  vagabond  Jews,  who  bore  with  them  the  reli- 
gion of  the  world,  —  these  suffering  men,  dream- 
ing in  their  misery  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  —  that 
we  shall  find  it  again.  We  do  not  dispute  with 
Rome  its  essential  title.  Rome  was  probably  the 
first  point  in  the  Western  World,  and  even  in 
Europe,  where  Christianity  was  established. 

But,  instead  of  these  lofty  basilicas,  in  place  of 
these  insulting  devices,  —  Christus  vincit,  Christus 
regnat,  Christus  imperat^ — it  would  be  better  to 
raise  a  poor  chapel  to  these  good  Jews  who  first 
pronounced  on  the  quay  of  Rome  the  name  of 
Jesus. 

A  capital  trait,  which  it  is  important  to  note  in 
any  case,  is,  that  the  Church  of  Rome  was  not, 
like  the  churches  of  Asia  Minor,  Macedonia,  and 
Greece,  a  foundation  of  the  school  of  Paul.  It 
was  fundamentally  Judsean-Christian,  re-attaching 
itself  directly  to  the  Church  of  Jerusalem.  Paul 
here  will  never  be  on  his  own  ground:  he  will 
find  in  this  great  church  many  weaknesses  which 
he  will  treat  with  indulgence,  but  which  will 
wound  his  exalted  idealism.  Attached  to  circum- 
cision and  outward  observances,  Ebionite  through 


HOME   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  49 

its  taste  for  abstinences,  and  by  its  doctrine  con- 
cerning the  person  and  death  of  Jesus  more  JeAvish 
than  Christian,  leaning  strongly  towards  Millen- 
arianism,  the  Roman  Church  showed,  since  its 
first  days,  the  essential  traits  which  will  distin- 
guish it  through  its  long  history.  Own  daugh- 
ter of  Jerusalem,  the  Roman  Church  will  always 
have  an  ascetic,  sacerdotal  character,  opposed  to 
the  Protestant  tendencies  of  Paul.  Peter  will  be 
its  veritable  head;  then,  the  political  and  hie- 
rarchical spirit  of  old  Rome  penetrating  it,  it  will 
indeed  become  the  new  Jerusalem,  the  city  of  the 
Pontificate,  of  the  hieratic  and  solemn  religion,  of 
the  material  sacraments  wdiich  justify  of  them- 
selves, the  city  of  the  ascetics  of  the  manner  of 
Jacques  Oliliam  with  his  callous  knees  and  his 
plate  of  gold  upon  his  brow.  It  will  be  the  au- 
thoritative church.  If  we  can  believe  it,  the  only 
mark  of  the  apostolic  mission  will  be  to  show  a 
letter  signed  by  the  apostles,  to  produce  a  certifi- 
cate of  orthodoxy.  The  good  and  the  evil  which 
the  Church  of  Jerusalem  did  in  giving  birth  to 
Christianity,  the  Church  of  Rome  will  do  for  the 
Universal  Church.  It  is  in  vain  that  Paul  will 
address  to  it  his  beautiful  epistle  to  explain  the 
mj^stery  of  the  cross  of  Jesus  and  of  salvation  by 
faith  alone.  The  Church  of  Rome  will  scarcely 
comprehend  it ;  but  Luther  four  and  a  half  cen- 
turies later  will  comprehend  it,  and  will  open  a 


50  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

new  era  in  a  secular  series  of  the  alternate  tri- 
umphs of  Peter  and  Paul. 

II. 

An  important  event  in  the  history  of  the  world 
took  place  in  the  year  61.  Paul  was  led  a  pris- 
oner to  Rome  in  order  to  follow  up  the  appeal 
which  he  had  made  to  the  tribunal  of  the  em- 
peror. A  sort  of  profound  instinct  had  always 
made  Paul  desire  this  journey.  His  arrival  at 
Rome  was  almost  as  marked  an  event  in  his  life 
as  his  conversion.  He  believed  that  he  had 
attained  the  summit  of  his  apostolic  life ;  and 
doubtless  he  recalled  the  dream  in  which,  after 
one  of  his  days  of  struggle,  Christ  had  appeared 
to  him,  and  said,  "  Be  of  good  cheer,  Paul ;  for 
as  thou  hast  testified  of  me  in  Jerusalem,  so  must 
thou  bear  witness  also  at  Rome." 

You  will  not  forget  the  wide  divisions  which 
separated  the  disciples  of  Jesus  during  the  first 
century  from  the  foundation  of  Christianity,  — 
divisions  so  broad,  that  all  the  differences  which 
to-day  separate  the  orthodox,  the  heretics,  and  the 
schismatics  of  the  whole  world,  are  nothing  beside 
the  dissensions  of  Peter  and  Paul.  The  Church 
of  Jerusalem,  obstinately  attached  to  Judaism, 
refused  all  intercourse  with  the  uncircumcised, 
however  pious  they  might  be.     Paul,  on  the  con- 


HOME   AXD   CHRISTIANITY.  51 

trary,  thought  that  to  maintain  the  ancient  law 
was  an  injury  to  Jesus,  since  thus  it  might  be 
supposed,  that,  outside  the  merits  of  Jesus,  such  or 
such  a  work  could  serve  for  the  justification  of 
the  faithful.  However  strange  it  may  appear,  it 
is  certain  that  the  Judaean  -  Christians  of  Jeru- 
salem, with  James  at  their  head,  organized  some 
active  contra-missions  in  order  to  combat  the  effect 
of  the  missions  of  Paul,  and  that  the  emissaries 
of  these  ardent  conservatives  followed  in  some 
sort  the  lead  of  the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles.  Peter 
belonged  to  the  party  at  Jerusalem,  but  showed 
in  his  conduct  that  sort  of  timid  moderation  which 
seems  to  have  been  the  foundation  of  his  character. 
Did  Peter  also  come  to  Rome  ?  Formerly,  gentle- 
men, this  question  was  one  of  the  most  exciting 
which  could  be  agitated.  Formerly  the  history  of 
religion  was  written,  not  to  recount  it,  but  in  order 
to  prove  it :  religious  history  was  an  annex  of 
theology.  During  the  grand  revolt,  so  full  of 
courage  and  of  ardent  conviction,  which,  during 
the  sixteenth  century,  placed  one-half  of  Europe 
in  opposition  to  Rome,  the  negation  of  the  sojourn 
of  Peter  at  Rome  became  a  sort  of  dogma.  The 
Bishop  of  Rome  is  the  successor  of  St.  Peter,  said 
the  Catholics,  and  as  such  the  head  of  Christen- 
dom. How  could  that  reasoning  be  more  strongly 
refuted  than  by  maintaining  that  Peter  never 
placed  his  foot  in  Rome  ? 


52  ENGLISH  CONFERENCES. 

As  for  US,  we  are  permitted  to  regard  this  ques- 
tion with  the  most  perfect  disinterestedness.     We 
do  not  believe,  in  any  sense,  that  Jesus  intended 
to   give   any  head  whatever  to  his  church ;   and 
above  all,  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  idea  of  such  a 
church  as  developed  later  had  existed  in  the  mind 
of  the  founder  of  Christianity.     The  word  ecclesia 
occurs  only  in  the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew.     The 
idea  of  the  episcopos,  as  it  existed  in  the  second 
century,  had  no  place  in  the  mind  of  Jesus.     He 
himself  was  the  living  episeopos  during  his  brief 
Galilean   appearance:    from   that   time   it   is  the 
Spirit  who  inspires  each  one  until  he  may  return. 
In  any  case,  if  it  had  been  possible  that  Jesus 
should  have  had  any  idea  whatever  of  the  ecclesia 
and  episcopos,  it  is  absolutely  beyond  doubt,  that 
Jesus  never  thought  of  giving  the  future  episcopos 
of  the  city  of  Rome  to  be  the  head  of  his  church, 
—  that  impious  city,  the  centre  of  all  the  impuri- 
ties of  the  earth,  of  whose  existence  he  perhaps 
knew  scarcely  any  thing,  and  of  which  he  should 
have  entertained  the  gloomy  opinions  which  all 
the  Jews  professed.     If  there  is  any  thing  in  the 
world  which  was  not  instituted  by  Jesus,  it  is  the 
Papacy,  that  is  to  say,  the  idea  that  the  Church 
is  a  monarchy.     We  are,  then,  perfectly  at  liberty 
to  discuss  the  question  of  Peter's  coming  to  Rome. 
This  question  is  absolutely  without  consequence 
for  us ;  and  from  our  solution  the  only  result  will 


ROME   A2s"D   CHRISTIANITY.  53 

be  to  say  whether  Leo  XIII.  is  or  is  not  the  head 
of  the  Christian  conscience.     Whether  Peter  was 
or  was  not  in  Rome,  it  has  for  us  no  political  nor 
moral  bearing.     It  is  a  curious   question   of   his-" 
tory :  it  is  useless  to  pursue  it  further. 

First,  let  us  say,  that  the  Catholics  have  laid 
themselves  open  to  the  peremptory  objections  of 
their  adversaries  by  their  unfortunate  reckoning 
of  the  coming  of  Peter  to  Rome  in  the  year  42, 
—  a  reckoning  borrowed  from  Eusebius  and  St. 
Jerome,  which  extends  the  duration  of  the  pontifi- 
cate of  Peter  to  twenty-three  or  twenty-four  years. 
There  is  nothing  more  inadmissible.  In  order  to 
leave  no  doubt  in  regard  to  this,  it  is  sufficient  to 
consider  that  the  persecution  of  Peter  at  Jeru- 
salem by  Herod  Agrippa  occurred  in  the  3'ear  44. 
It  would  be  superfluous  to  oppose  longer  a  thesis 
which  can  have  no  one  reasonable  defence.  It  is 
possible,  in  fact,  to  go  much  further,  and  to  affirm 
that  Peter  had  not  yet  come  to  Rome  when  Paul 
was  taken  there,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  year  61. 
The  Epistle  of  Paul  to  the  Romans,  written  about 
the  year  58,  is  a  very  considerable  argument  here. 
One  can  starcely  imagine  St.  Paul  Avriting  to  the 
faithful,  of  whom  St.  Peter  was  the  head,  without 
making  the  least  mention  of  the  latter.  The  last 
chapter  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  is  still  more 
demonstrative.  This  chapter,  especially  from  the 
seventeenth  to  the  twenty-ninth  verse,  cannot  be 


64  ENGLISH  CONFEEENCES. 

explained,  if  Peter  was  at  Rome  when  Paul  ar- 
rived there.  Let  us,  then,  consider  it  absolutely- 
certain  that  Peter  did  not  come  to  Pome  before 
Paul,  that  is  to  say,  before  or  about  the  year  61. 

But  did  he  not  come  there  after  Paul?  This 
has  never  been  positively  proved ;  this  late  jour- 
ney of  Peter's  to  Home  was  not  only  probable, 
but  there  are  strong  arguments  in  its  favor.  Be- 
sides the  testimony  of  the  Fathers  of  the  second 
and  third  centuries,  there  are  three  reasons  which 
do  not  appear  to  me  unworthy :  — 

1st,  It  is  indisputably  certain  that  Peter  suf- 
fered a  martyr's  death.  The  .testimony  of  the 
fourth  evangelist,  of  Clement  Romanus,  of  the 
fragment  which  is  called  the  "  Canon  de  Mura- 
tor^'  of  Denis  of  Corinth,  of  Cains,  of  Tertul- 
lian,  leave  no  doubt  in  this  respect.  Let  the 
fourth  Gospel  be  apochryphal,  allow  that  chapter 
xxi.  has  been  added  in  later  times,  it  makes  no 
difference.  It  is  clear,  that,  in  the  verses  in  which 
Jesus  announces  to  Peter  that  he  shall  die  by  the 
same  suffering  as  his  own,  we  have  the  expression 
of  an  opinion  established  in  the  Church  about  120 
or  130,  to  which  allusions  are  made  as  to  a  fact 
known  to  all.  Now,  it  is  not  possible  to  imagine 
that  Peter  died  a  martyr  outside  of  Rome.  It 
was  only  at  Rome,  in  fact,  that  the  persecution 
of  Nero  was  violent.  At  Jerusalem,  at  Antioch, 
the  martyrdom  of  Peter  would  have  been  much 
less  probable. 


ROME  AND   CHEISTIANITY.  55 

2d,  The  second  reason  is  found  iii  the  Epistle 
attributed  to  St.  Peter  (v.  13)  :  "  The  church 
that  is  at  Babylon  .  .  .  saluteth  you."  Babjdon, 
in  this  passage,  evidently  indicates  Rome.  If  the 
Epistle  is  authentic,  the  passage  is  decisive  :  if  it 
is  apocryphal,  the  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from 
the  text  is  not  weakened.  The  author,  in  short, 
whoever  he  may  be,  wishes  it  to  be  regarded  as 
the  work  of  Peter.  He  was  consequently  forced, 
in  order  to  give  an  appearance  of  truth  to  his 
fraud,  to  arrange  the  circumstances  which  he  re- 
lated, according  to  what  he  knew,  or  believed  was 
known  in  his  time,  of  the  life  of  Peter.  If,  in 
such  a  spirit,  he  dated  the  letter  at  Rome,  it 
shows,  that,  in  his  day,  it  was  the  general  opinion 
that  Peter  had  resided  at  Rome.  But,  in  any  case, 
the  First  Epistle  of  Peter  is  a  very  ancient  work, 
and  had  very  early  a  high  authority. 

3d,  The  theory  which  is  founded  upon  the 
Ebionite  Acts  of  St.  Peter  is  also  worthy  of  much 
consideration.  This  theory  represents  St.  Peter 
as  following  Simon  the  IMagician  everywhere  (ac- 
cording to  St.  Paul),  in  order  to  dispute  his  false 
doctrines.  M.  Lipsius  has  shown  an  admirable 
critical  sagacity  in  his  analysis  of  this  legend. 
He  has  shown  that  the  base  of  all  the  different 
versions  of  it  which  have  come  to  us  was  written 
about  the  year  130.  It  seems  improbable  that  an 
Ebionite   author  of  such  early  date   could  have 


S6  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

given  so  much  importance  to  Peter's  journey  to 
Rome,  if  this  journey  had  not  taken  place  in  real- 
ity. The  theory  of  the  Ebionite  legend  must 
contain  some  truth  at  the  bottom,  in  spite  of  tlie 
fables  which  are  mingled  with  it.  It  is  quite  ad- 
missible that  St.  Peter  might  have  come  to  Rome, 
as  he  went  to  Antioch,  following  St.  Paul,  and  in 
part  to  neutralize  his  influence.  The  missions 
of  St.  Paul,  and  the  facility  which  the  Jews  had 
acquired  in  their  voyages  had  made  long  expedi- 
tions quite  the  custom.  The  apostle  Philip  is 
even  represented  by  an  ancient  and  persistent 
tradition  as  having  settled  himself  in  Hierapolis, 
in  Asia  Minor. 

I  regard,  then,  as  probable,  the  tradition  of  the 
sojourn  of  Peter  at  Rome ;  but  I  believe  that  this 
sojourn  was  short,  and  that  Peter  suffered  martyr- 
dom soon  after  his  arrival  in  the  Eternal  City. 

ni. 

You  know  the  mystery  which  hovers  above  the 
history  of  primitive  Christianity,  which  we  might 
desire  to  know  more  in  detail.  The  death  of  the 
apostles  Peter  and  Paul  remains  enveloped  in  a 
veil  which  will  never  be  penetrated.  That  which 
appears  the  most  probable  is,  that  they  both  dis- 
appeared in  the  great  massacre  of  Christians  com- 
manded by  Nero. 


ROME   AXD    CHRISTIAXITY.  67 

On  the  lOth  of  July,  in  the  year  64,  a  violent 
fire  burst  out  at  Rome.  It  originated  in  that 
portion  of  the  great  Circus  near  to  the  Palatine 
and  Coelian  Hills.  In  this  quarter  there  were 
many  little  shops,  filled  with  inflammable  matter, 
in  which  the  flames  spread  with  prodigious  rapid- 
ity. Thence  it  made  the  turn  of  the  Palatine, 
ravaged  the  Velabra,  the  Forum,  the  Carinse, 
ascended  the  hills,  greatly  injured  the  Palatine, 
descended  again  to  the  valleys,  devouring  compact 
quarters,  and  piercing  tortuous  streets,  continuing 
six  days  and  seven  nights.  An  enormous  pile  of 
houses  which  were  torn  down  near  the  foot  of  the 
Esquiline,  arrested  its  progress  for  a  time ;  then 
it  again  broke  out,  and  endured  three  days  more. 
A  considerable  number  of  people  perished.  Of 
the  fourteen  portions  which  composed  the  city, 
three  were  entirely  destroyed;  of  seven,  only 
blackened  walls  remained.  Rome  was  an  ex- 
tremely compact  city,  and  the  population  very 
dense.  This  disaster  was  frightful,  and  the  like 
of  it  had  never  before  been  seen. 

When  the  fire  broke  out,  Nero  was  at  Antium. 
He  returned  to  the  city  about  the  time  when  it 
approached  his  "transitory"  house.  It  was  not 
possible  to  arrest  the  flames.  The  imperial  houses 
of  the  Palatine,  the  "  transitory  "  house  itself  with 
its  dependencies,  and  the  whole  surrounding  quar- 
ter, were  destroyed.     Nero  did  not  seem  much  to 


58  ENGLISH   COXFERENCES. 

regret  the  loss  of  liis  house.  The  sublhne  horror 
of  the  spectacle  transported  him.  Later  it  was 
said  that  he  had  watched  the  fire  from  a  tower, 
where,  in  a  theatrical  costume,  with  a  Ijre  in  liis 
hand,  he  chanted  the  ruin  of  Ilion  to  the  rhythm 
of  an  ancient  elegy. 

This  was  a  legend,  the  fruit  of  a  period  of  suc- 
cessive exaggerations ;  but  one  point  upon  which 
the  universal  opinion  was  decisive  from  the  first 
was,  that  Nero  had  commanded  this  fire,  or  at 
least  had  revived  it  when  it  seemed  about  to  die 
out. 

These  suspicions  were  confirmed  by  the  fact, 
that,  after  the  fire,  Nero,  under  pretext  of  remov- 
ing the  ruins  at  his  own  cost,  in  order  to  leave  the 
place  free  to  the  proprietors,  undertook  to  clear 
away  the  debris ;  and  the  people  were  not  allowed 
to  approach.  This  seemed  worse  when  it  was 
seen  that  he  drew  from  the  ruins  what  belonged 
to  the  country,  when  the  new  palace,  that  "  golden 
house  "  which  had  been  the  plaything  of  his  deli- 
rious imagination,  was  seen  rising  upon  the  site 
of  the  ancient  provisory  residence,  enlarged  by 
the  spaces  which  the  fire  had  cleared. 

It  was  believed  that  he  had  desired  to  prepare 
the  place  for  his  new  palace,  to  justify  the  recon- 
struction which  he  had  long  contemplated,  to  pro- 
cure money  by  appropriating  the  wreck  of  the 
fire,  in  short,  to  satisfy  his  mad  vanity,  which  led 


ROME   AND    CHRISTIANITY.  59 

Hm  to  desire  to  rebuild  the  whole  of  Rome,  so 
that  it  might  date  from  him,  and  be  called  Ne- 
ropolis. 

All  the  honest  men  of  the  cit}^  were  outraged. 
The  most  precious  antiquities  of  Rome,  the 
houses  of  the  ancient  leaders,  decorated  with 
triumphal  spoils,  the  most  holy  objects,  the  tro- 
phies, the  ancient  ex-votos^  the  most  revered 
temples,  all  the  belongings  of  the  old  worship  of 
the  Romans,  had  disappeared.  It  was  as  if  they 
mourned  the  souvenirs  and  the  traditions  of  the 
whole  country.  They  celebrated  expiatory  ser- 
vices ;  they  consulted  the  books  of  the  Sihjl :  the 
ladies  especially  observed  various  piacula.  But 
the  secret  consciousness  of  a  crime  and  infamy 
still  remained. 

Then  an  infernal  idea  took  possession  of  the 
mind  of  Nero.  He  cast  about  to  see  if  he  could 
find  anywhere  some  miserable  wretches,  still  more 
detested  by  the  Roman  plebeians  than  himself, 
upon  whom  he  could  rest  the  odium  of  the  in- 
cendiarism. He  thought  of  the  Christians.  The 
horror  which  they  testified  towards  the  temples 
and  the  most  venerated  edifices  of  the  Romans 
made  the  idea  plausible,  that  they  should  have 
been  the  authors  of  this  fire,  the  result  of  which 
was  the  destruction  of  these  sanctuaries.  Their  air 
of  sadness  in  regarding  the  monuments  appeared 
like  an  injury  to  the  nation.     Rome  was  a  very 


60  ENGLISH   CONFEEENCES. 

religious  city,  and  whoever  protested  against  the 
national  worship  was  at  once  remarked.  It  should 
be  remembered  that  certain  rigorous  Jews  went 
so  far  as  to  refuse  to  touch  money  which  bore  an 
effigj :  they  even  saw  a  great  crime  in  bearing  or 
looking  at  an  image,  unless  engaged  in  the  occu- 
pation of  carving.  Others  refused  to  pass  beneath 
a  city  gate  surmounted  by  a  statue.  All  this  ex- 
cited the  ridicule  and  ill-will  of  the  people.  Per- 
haps the  idea  that  the  Christians  were  incendiaries 
gained  force  from  their  manner  of  talking  about 
the  final  conflagration,  their  sinister  prophecies, 
their  love  of  reiterating  that  the  world  would 
soon  be  ended,  and  ended  by  fire.  It  is  even  ad- 
missible that  some  of  the  faithful  might  have  com- 
mitted imprudences,  and  that  there  were  pretexts 
for  accusing  them  of  having  wished,  by  anticipat- 
ing the  celestial  flames,  to  justify  their  oracles,  at 
any  price.  Four  and  a  half  years  later  the  Apo- 
calypse was  to  present  a  chant  upon  the  burning 
of  Rome,  for  which  the  event  of  64  probably  fur- 
nished more  than  one  feature.  The  destruction 
of  Rome  by  fire  had  been  a  Christian  and  Jewish 
dream  ;  and  it  was  not  merely  a  dream  :  the  pious 
sectaries  were  pleased  to  see  in  spirit  the  saints 
and  angels  applauding  from  the  heights  of  heaven 
what  they  regarded  as  a  just  expiation. 

A  certain  number  of  j)ersons  suspected  of  be- 
longing to  the  new  sect  were  arrested,  and  thrown 


ROME   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  61 

into  prison,  which  was  of  itself  a  punisliiuent. 
The  first  arrests  were  followed  by  many  others. 
The  people  were  surprised  at  the  multitude  of 
converts  who  had  accepted  these  gloomy  doc- 
trines: it  was  only  spoken  of  with  alarm.  All 
sensible  men  considered  the  accusation  of  having 
caused  the  fire  as  extremely  weak.  "  Their  true 
crime,"  said  they,  ''is  hatred  of  the  human  race." 
Although  persuaded  that  the  burning  was  the 
crime  of  Nero,  many  serious  Romans  saw  in  this 
work  of  the  police  a  mode  of  delivering  the  city 
from  a  dreadful  nuisance.  Tacitus,  in  spite  of  his 
pity,  was  of  this  opinion.  And  Suetonius  counted 
the  sufferings  which  Nero  heaped  upon  the  parti- 
sans of  the  new  and  mischievous  superstitions  as 
among  his  laudable  measures. 

These  sufferings  were  something  frightful.  Such 
refinements  of  cruelty  had  never  been  seen. 
Almost  all  those  arrested  were  of  the  humiliores 
(the  poorest  classes).  The  sentence  of  these  un- 
fortunates, when  it  concerned  high  treason  or 
sacrilege,  was  to  be  thrown  to  the  beasts,  or  to  be 
burned  alive  in  the  amphitheatre.  One  of  the 
most  hideous  traits  of  Roman  manners  was  that  of 
making  a  fete^  a  public  amusement,  of  these  tor- 
tures. The  amphitheatres  had  become  places  of 
execution:  the  tribunals  furnished  "the  victims. 
The  condemned  of  the  entire  world  were  for- 
warded  to    Rome    for  the   provisionment   of  the 


62  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

circus  and  the  amusement  of  the  people.  At  this 
time  derision  was  added  to  the  barbarism  of  these 
tortures.  Tlie  victims  were  kept  for  a  feast  day, 
to  wliich  was  given,  without  doubt,  an  expiatory 
character.  "  The  morning  spectacle,"  consecrated 
to  the  combats  of  animals,  presented  an  appearance 
hitherto  unknown.  The  condemned,  covered  with 
the  tawny  skins  of  beasts,  were  hurried  into  the 
arena,  where  they  were  torn  by  dogs.  Some  were 
crucified :  others,  reclothed  with  tunics  steeped  in 
oil,  wax,  or  resin,  were  bound  to  posts,  and  reserved 
to  light  up  the  evening  fetes.  When  the  day 
lowered,  these  living  torches  were  ignited.  For 
this  spectacle,  Nero  offered  his  magnificent  gardens 
beyond  the  Tiber,  which  occupied  the  site  of  the 
present  Borgo,  the  Square,  and  the  Church  of  St. 
Peter.  Kear  by  was  a  circus  commenced  by  Cali- 
gula, in  which  the  middle  of  the  Spina  was  marked 
by  an  obelisk  brought  from  Heliopolis  (the  same 
one  which  in  our  day  stands  in  the  centre  of  the 
Square  of  St.  Peter).  This  place  had  already  been 
the  scene  of  massacres  by  the  light  of  torches. 
Caligula,  in  one  of  his  walks,  decapitated  a  cer- 
tain number  of  consular  personages,  senators,  and 
Roman  ladies,  by  the  light  of  torches.  The  idea 
of  replacing  lanterns  by  human  bodies  impreg- 
nated with  inflammable  substances  had  occurred  to 
the  ingenious  Nero.  Burning  alive  was  not  a 
new  mode  of  suffering ;  it  was  the  ordinary  pen- 


HOME   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  63 

ance  of  incendiaries :  but  it  had  never  been  made 
a  system  of  illumination.  By  the  light  of  these 
hideous  torches,  Nero,  who  had  established  the 
custom  of  evening  entertainments,  showed  himself 
in  the  arena,  sometimes  mingling  with  the  people  in 
the  dress  of  a  charioteer,  sometimes  conducting  his 
chariot  and  seeking  applause.  Women  and  young 
girls  were  involved  in  these  horrible  games  :  a  fete 
was  made  of  the  nameless  indignities  which  they 
suffered.  Under  Nero,  the  custom  was  established 
of  compelling  the  condemned  to  play  in  the  amphi- 
theatre some  mythological  part  entailing  the  death 
of  the  actor.  These  hideous  operas,  where  mechan- 
ical science  attained  to  prodigious  effects,  were 
very  popular.  The  miserable  wretch  w^as  intro- 
duced into  the  arena,  richly  costumed  as  god  or 
hero  devoted  to  death.  He  then  represented  by 
his  sufferino:  some  traffic  scene  of  the  fables  conse- 
crated  by  sculptors  and  poets.  Sometimes  it  was 
the  furious  Hercules  burned  on  Mount  CEta,  tear- 
ing the  waxed  tunic  from  his  skin ;  sometimes 
Orpheus  torn  in  pieces  by  a  bear ;  Dsedalus  thrown 
from  heaven,  and  devoured  by  beasts ;  Pasiphse 
struggling  in  the  embraces  of  the  bull ;  Attys 
murdered.  Sometimes  there  were  horrible  mas- 
querades, in  which  the  men  were  dressed  like 
priests  of  Saturn  with  a  red  cloak,  the  women  as 
priestesses  of  Ceres  with  fillets  on  the  brow  • 
finally,  at  other  times,  some  dramatic  work  of  the 


64  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

time,  in  which  the  hero  was  really  condemned  to 
death  as  Laureolus ;  or  the  representations  were 
those  of  such  tramc  acts  as  that  of  Mucins 
Scsevola.  At  the  end  of  these  hideous  spectacles, 
Mercury,  with  a  red-hot  iron  wand,  touched  each 
corpse  to  see  if  it  moved.  Some  masked  valets, 
dressed  like  Pluto  or  Orcus,  dragged  away  the 
dead  by  the  feet,  killing  with  hammers  all  who 
still  breathed.  The  Christian  ladies  of  the  highest 
respectability  even  suffered  these  monstrosities. 
Some  played  the  role  of  the  Dana'ides,  others  that 
of  Dirce.  It  is  difficult  to  say  what  fable  fur- 
nishes a  more  bloody  picture  than  that  of  the 
Dana'ides.  The  suffering  which  all  mythological 
tradition  attributes  to  these  guilty  women  was 
not  cruel  enough  to  suffice  for  the  pleasure  of 
Nero  and  the  habitues  of  his  amphitheatre.  Some- 
times they  were  led  out  bearing  urns,  and  received 
the  fatal  blow  from  an  actor  figuring  as  Lynceus. 
Sometimes  these  unhappy  beings  went  through 
the  series  of  the  sufferings  of  Tartarus  before  the 
spectators,  and  only  died  after  hours  of  torments. 
The  representations  of  Hell  were  quite  a  la  mode. 
Some  years  previous  (the  year  41),  some  Egyptians 
and  Nubians  came  to  Rome,  and  made  a  great 
success  in  giving  evening  performances,  in  which 
they  displayed  in  order  the  horrors  of  the  subter- 
ranean world,  conforming  to  the  paintings  of  the 
burial-places  of  Thebes,  notably  those  of  the  tomb 
of  Seti  I. 


ROME   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  65 

As  for  the  sufferings  of  the  Dirces,  there  was 
no  doubt  about  them.  People  know  the  colossal 
group  now  in  the  jNIuseum  of  Naples,  called  the 
Toro  Farnese,  —  Amphion  and  Zethus  attaching 
Dirce  to  the  horns  of  an  unmanageable  bull, 
which  is  to  drag  her  over  the  rocks  and  briers  of 
Cithseron.  This  mediocre  Rhodian  marble,  brought 
to  Rome  in  the  time  of  Augustus,  was  the  object  of 
universal  admiration.  How  could  there  be  a  finer 
subject  for  the  hideous  art  which  the  cruelty  of 
the  time  had  made  in  vogue,  and  which  consisted 
in  reproducing  the  celebrated  statues  in  living 
tableaux?  An  inscription  and  a  fresco  of  Pom- 
peii seem  to  prove  that  this  terrible  scene  was 
frequently  repeated  in  the  arenas,  when  a  woman 
was  the  sufferer.  Naked,  attached  by  the  hair  to 
the  horns  of  a  furious  bull,  these  poor  wretches 
glutted  the  eyes  of  a  ferocious  people.  Some  of 
the  Christians  immolated  in  this  way  were  feeble 
in  body:  their  courage  was  superhuman.  But 
the  infamous  crowd  had  eyes  alone  fo<r  their  torn 
bowels  and  lacerated  bosoms. 

After  the  day  when  Jesus  expired  in  Golgotha, 
the  fete  day  in  the  Gardens  of  Nero  (it  may 
be  fixed  about  the  first  of  August,  64)  Avas  the 
most  solemn  in  the  history  of  Christianity.  The 
solidity  of  any  construction  is  in  proportion  to  the 
sum  of  virtue,  of  sacrifices,  and  of  devotion  which 
has  been  laid  down  at  its  base.     Only  fanatics  lay 


Q6  ENGLISH  CONFERENCES. 

foundations.  Judaism  endures  still  on  account  of 
the  intense  frenzy  of  its  zealots;  Christianity,  on 
account  of  its  first  witnesses.  The  orgy  of  Nero 
was  the  grand  baptism  of  blood  which  set  Rome 
apart  as  the  city  of  martyrs  in  order  to  play  a 
distinct  role  in  the  history  of  Christianity  and  to 
be  the  second  Holy  City.  It  was  the  taking  pos- 
session of  the  Vatican  Hill  by  conquerors  hitherto 
unknown  there.  The  odious,  hair-brained  man 
who  governed  the  world  did  not  perceive  that  he 
was  the  founder  of  a  new  order,  and  that  he  signed 
a  charter  for  the  future,  the  effects  of  which  would 
be  claimed  after  eighteen  hundred  years. 

IV. 

As  we  have  said,  it  is  allowable,  without  im- 
probability, to  connect  the  deaths  of  the  apostles 
Peter  and  Paul  with  the  account  which  we  have 
just  given.  The  only  historical  incident  known, 
by  which  the  martyrdom  of  Peter  can  be  ex- 
plained, is  the  episode  recounted  by  Tacitus. 
Some  solid  reasons  also  lead  us  to  believe  that 
Paul  suffered  the  death  of  a  martyr  at  Rome.  It 
is  then  natural  to  suppose  that  he  also  died  in  the 
massacre  of  July  and  August,  64.  As  to  the  man- 
ner of  death  of  the  two  apostles,  we  know  with 
certainty  that  Peter  was  crucified.  According  to 
some  ancient  writings,  his  wife  was  executed  with 


ROME  AND   CHRISTIANITY.  67 

him,  and  he  saw  her  led  to  the  sacrifice.  One 
accepted  account  of  the  third  century  says,  that, 
too  humble  to  equal  Jesus,  he  suffered  with  his 
head  down.  The  characteristic  trait  of  the  butch- 
ery of  64  having  been  the  search  for  odious  rari- 
ties in  torture,  it  is  possible  that  in  truth  Peter 
was  shown  to  the  crowd  in  this  hideous  attitude. 
Seneca  mentions  some  cases  in  which  tyrants 
have  been  known  to  turn  the  heads  of  the  cru- 
cified towards  the  earth.  Christian  piety  has  seen 
a  mystical  refinement  in  that  which  was  indeed  an 
odd  caprice  of  the  executioner.  Perhaps  this  ex- 
tract from  the  Fourth  Gospel  —  "  Thou  shalt  stretch 
forth  thy  hands,  and  another  shall  gird  thee,  and 
carry  thee  whither  thou  wouldest  not" — includes 
some  allusion  to  a  peculiarity  in  the  suffering  of 
Peter.  Paul,  in  his  quality  of  honestior,  had  his 
head  cut  off.  It  is  also  probable  that  he  was 
judged  regularly,  and  that  he  was  not  included  in 
the  summary  condemnations  of  the  victims  in  the 
fete  of  Nero.  All  that,  I  repeat,  is  doubtful,  and 
of  little  importance.  True  or  not,  the  legend  is 
believed.  At  the  commencement  of  the  third 
century,  near  Pome,  there  were  already  seen  two 
monuments  bearing  the  names  of  Feter  and  Paul. 
One  was  situated  at  the  foot  of  the  Vatican  Hill, 
that  of  St.  1  ieter  :  the  other,  in  the  way  to  Ostia, 
was  that  of  St.  Paul.  They  were  called  in  ora- 
torial  style  the  trophies  of  the  apostles.     In  the 


68  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

fourth  century  two  basilicas  were  raised  above 
these  trophies.  One  of  them  is  the  present  basilica 
of  St.  Peter :  the  other,  St.  Paul-without-the-Walls, 
has  retained  its  essential  features  until  our  own 
century. 

Did  the  trophies  which  the  Christians  venerated 
about  the  year  200  designate  the  spots  upon  which 
these  apostles  suffered  ?  It  is  possible.  It  is  not 
unlikely  that  Paul,  toward  the  end  of  his  life, 
dwelt  in  the  suburb  which  extended  beyond  the 
Lavernal  gate  as  far  as  the  pine  of  the  Salvian 
springs  in  the  way  to  Ostia.  •'  The  shade  of  Peter, 
on  the  other  hand,  wanders  always,  according  to  the 
Christian  legend,  towards  the  turpentine-tree  of 
the  Vatican,  not  far  from  the  gardens  of  the  Circus 
of  Nero,  and  especially  about  the  obelisk.  It  may 
be  that  the  ancient  place  of  the  obelisk  in  the 
sacristy  of  St.  Peter,  now  indicated  by  an  inscrip- 
tion, is  nearer  to  the  place  where  St.  Peter  upon 
the  cross  of  his  frightful  agony  surfeited  the  eyes 
of  a  populace  greedy  to  see  him  suffer.  How- 
ever, that  is  a  secondary  question.  If  the  basilica 
of  the  Vatican  does  not  really  cover  the  tomb  of 
St.  Peter,  it  points  out  not  the  less  for  our  remem- 
brance one  of  ^  the  spots  most  truly  hallowed  by 
Christianity.  The  place  which  the  seventeenth 
century  surrounded  with  a  theatrical  colonnade 
was  a  second  Calvary;  and,  even  supposing  that 
Peter  was  not  crucified  there,  at  least  we  cannot 


ROME  AND   CHEISTIANITY.  69 

doubt   the   sufferings   of    the   Danaides  and  the 
Dirces. 

We  shall  show  in  our  next  assembly  how  tradi- 
tion disposes  of  all  these  doubts,  and  how  the 
Church  consummates  reconciliation  between  Peter 
and  Paul,  which  death  perhaps  began.  This  was 
the  price  of  success.  The  Judsean-Christianity 
of  Peter  and  the  Hellenism  of  Paul,  apparently 
irreconcilable,  were  equally  necessary  to  the  suc- 
cess of  the  future  work.  The  Judsean-Christian- 
ity  represented  the  conservative  spirit  without 
which  nothing  is  solid ;  Hellenism,  advance  and 
progress,  without  which  nothing  truly  exists. 
Life  is  the  result  of  a  conflict  between  two  con- 
trary  forces.  The  absence  of  all  revolutionary 
spirit  is  as  fatal  as  the  excess  of  revolution. 


THIED    CONFEEEl^CE, 

London,  Apeil  13,  1S80. 


ROME, 

THE  CENTRE  OF  THE  FORMATIOlSr  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL 
AUTHOKITY. 


THIRD    CONFEKENCE. 

EOME     THE      CENTRE    OF     THE     FORMATION   OF 
ECCLESIASTICAL  AUTHORITY. 

I. 

Almost  always  the  nations  created  to  play  a 
part  in  universal  civilization,  like  Judaea,  Greece, 
and  the  Italy  of  the  renaissance,  exercise  their  full 
action  upon  the  world,  only  after  becoming  victims 
to  their  own  grandeur.  They  must  first  die ;  then 
the  world  lives  on  them,  assimilates  to  itself  that 
which  they  have  created  at  the  price  of  their  fever 
and  their  sufferings.  Nations  ought  to  choose  in 
fact  between  the  long,  tranquil,  obscure  destiny 
of  that  which  lives  for  itself,  and  the  troubled, 
stormy  career  of  that  which  lives  for  humanity. 
The  nation  which  works  out  social  and  religious 
problems  in  its  own  bosom  is  almost  always  weak 
politically.  Every  country  which  dreams  of  a 
kingdom  of  God,  which  lives  for  general  ideas, 
which  pursues  a  work  of  universal  interest,  sacri- 
fices through  the  same  its  individual  destiny, 
enfeebles    and   destroys   its   role   as   a   terrestrial 

73 


74  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

country.  One  can  never  set  himself  on  fire  with 
impunity.  Since  Judaea  made  the  religious  con- 
quest of  the  world,  it  was  necessary  that  she 
should  disappear  as  a  nation.  A  revolution  of 
extreme  violence  broke  out  in  this  country  in  the 
year  6Q.  During  four  years,  this  strange  race, 
which  seemed  created  to  defy  equally  that  which 
blessed  and  that  which  cursed  it,  was  in  a  convul- 
sion before  which  the  historian  should  pause  with 
respect  as  he  would  before  all  mystery. 

The  causes  of  this  crisis  were  very  old,  and  the 
crisis  itself  was  inevitable.  The  Mosaic  law,  a 
work  of  exalted  Utopians  possessed  of  a  powerful 
socialist  ideal,  —  the  least  politic  of  men,  —  was, 
like  the  Islam,  exclusive  of  a  civil  society  parallel 
with  a  religious  society.  This  law,  which  appears 
to  have  been  drawn  up,  as  we  now  read  it,  in  the 
seventh  century  before  Jesus  Christ,  would  have 
been  the  means  of  destroying  the  little  kingdom  of 
the  descendants  of  David,  even  without  the  Assyr- 
ian conquest.  Since  the  preponderance  assumed 
by  the  prophetic  element,  the  kingdom  of  Judah 
—  embroiled  with  all  its  neighbors,  seized  with  a 
permanent  rage  against  Tyre,  hating  Edom,  Moab, 
and  Ammon  —  could  no  longer  survive.  I  repeat, 
a  nation  which  devotes  itself  to  social  and  religious 
problems  neglects  its  politics.  The  day  in  which 
Israel  became  "  a  peculiar  people  of  God,  a  king- 
dom of  priests,  a  holy  nation,"  it  was  written  that 


ROME   AND    CHRISTIANITY.  75 

she  should  no  longer  be  a  nation  as  other  nations. 
Contrary  destinies  cannot  be  united  :  an  exalta- 
tion is  always  expiated  by  an  abasement. 

The  Achemenidean  kingdom  gave  Israel  little 
repose.  This  grand  feudality,  tolerant  towards 
all  provincial  differences,  almost  analogous  to  the 
Califat  of  Bagdad  and  to  the  Ottoman  Empire, 
was  the  rule  under  which  the  Jews  found  them- 
selves most  at  ease.  The  Ptolemaic  rule  in  the 
third  century  before  Jesus  Christ  seemed  equally 
sympathetic  to  them  :  there  were  even  no  Seleu- 
cidse.  Antioch  had.  become  an  active  centre  of 
Hellenic  propagandism.  Antiochus  Epiphanus 
felt  it  necessary  to  set  up  everywhere  the  image  of 
Jupiter  Olympus  as  the  sign  of  his  power.  Then 
broke  out  the  first  great  Jewish  revolt  against 
profane  civilization.  Israel  had  patiently  sup- 
ported the  disappearance  of  its  political  existence 
since  Nebuchadnezzar.  It  retained  no  measure  in 
which  it  saw  a  danger  to  its  religious  institutions. 
A  race,  in  general  not  military,  was  seized  with 
an  access  of  heroism ;  without  a  regular  army, 
without  generals,  without  tactics,  it  conquered 
the  Seleucidse,  maintained  its  revealed  rights,  and 
created  a  second  period  of  autonomy.  The  Asmo- 
nean  royalty,  nevertheless,  was  always  distracted 
by  profound  interior  vices.  It  endured  but  one 
century.  The  destiny  of  the  Jewish  people  was 
not  to  constitute  a   separate   nationality.      That 


76  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

people  dreamed  always  of  something  international. 
Its  ideal  was  not  the  city,  it  was  the  synagogue, 
the  free  congregation.  The  same  is  true  of  the 
Islam,  which  has  created  an  immense  empire,  but 
has  destroyed  all  nationality,  in  the  sense  in  which 
we  understand  it,  among  the  peoples  Avhich  it  has 
subjugated,  and  leaves  them  no  other  country  than 
the  mosque  and  the  Zaouia. 

The  name  of  theocracy  is  often  applied  to  such 
a  social  condition,  and  rightly  so,  if  we  mean  by 
it  that  the  profound  idea  of  the  Semitic  religions, 
and  of  the  empires  which  came  out  from  them,  is 
the  kingdom  of  God  considered  as  the  master  of 
the  world,  and  aniversal  suzerain.  ButHheocracy 
with  these  nations  was  not  synonymous  with  the 
domination  of  priests.  The  priest,  properly  speak- 
ing, plays  an  unimportant  role  in  the  history  of 
Judaism  and  Islamism.  The  power  belongs  to  the 
representative  of  God,  —  to  him  whom  God  inspires, 
to  the  prophet,  to  the  holy  man,  to  him  who  has 
received  his  mission  from  Heaven,  and  who  proves 
his  mission  by  a  miracle,  that  is  to  say,  by  success. 
In  default  of  a  prophet,  the  power  belongs  to  the 
author  of  apocalypses,  and  of  apocryphal  books 
attributed  to  the  ancient  prophets,  or,  better,  to 
the  doctor  who  interprets  the  divine  law,  to  the 
head  of  the  synagogue,  and,  still  more,  to  the  head 
of  the  family  who  guards  the  depository  of  the 
law,  and   transmits   it   to   his   children.     A  civil 


EOME   AND   CHRISTIANTTY.  77 

power,  a  royalty,  has  little  to  do  with  such  social 
organization.  This  organization  never  works 
better  than  among  spread-out  peoples,  under  the 
rights  of  tolerated  foreigners,  in  a  grand  empire 
where  uniformity  does  not  rule.  It  is  the  nature 
of  Judaism  to  be  politically  subordinate,  since  it 
cannot  draw  from  its  own  bosom  a  principle  of 
military  power.  Its  animus  has  been  to  form  com- 
munities with  their  own  laws  and  their  own  magis- 
trates  in  the  midst  of  other  states,  until  modern 
liberalism  introduced  the  principle  of  the  equality 
of  all  before  the  law. 

The  Roman  rule,  established  in  Judsea  sixty- 
three  yearg  before  Christ  by  the  armies  of  Pompey, 
seemed  at  first  to  realize  some  of  the  conditions 
of  Jewish  life.  Rome  at  this  epoch  did  not  pur- 
sue the  policy  of  assimilating  the  countries  which 
she  annexed  to  her  vast  empire.  She  robbed 
them  of  the  right  of  peace  and  war,  and  arrogated 
to  herself  only  the  arbitration  in  great  political 
questions. 

Under  the  degenerated  remains  of  the  Asmo- 
nean  dynasty  and  under  the  Herods,  the  Jewish 
nation  preserved  a  half  independence,  in  which  its 
religious  state  was  respected.  But  the  interior 
feeling  of  the  people  was  too  strong.  Beyond  a 
certain  degree  of  religious  fanaticism,  man  is  un- 
governable. It  should  be  said  that  Rome  strove 
without  ceasing'^  to  render  her  power  in  the  East 


78  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

more  effective.  The  little  vassal  kingdoms  wMch. 
she  had  at  first  preserved,  disappeared  day  by  day, 
and  the  provinces  made  returns  to  the  empire  pure 
and  simple.  The  administrative  customs  of  the 
Romans,  even  in  their  most  reasonable  aspects, 
were  odious  to  the  Jews.  In  general,  the  Romans 
showed  the  greatest  condescension  to  the  fastidi- 
ous scruples  of  the  nation ;  but  that  was  not  suffi- 
cient :  things  had  come  to  a  point  where  nothing 
could  be  done  without  touching  upon  a  canonical 
question.  These  absolute  religions,  like  Tslamism 
and  Judaism,  allow  no  participation :  if  they  do 
not  reign,  they  call  themselves  persecuted.  If 
they  feel  themselves  protected,  they  become  exact- 
ing, and  seek  to  render  life  impossible  to  other 
worships  about  them. 

I  should  depart  from  my  plan  if  I  recounted  to 
you  that  strange  struggle  of  which  Josephus  tells 
us,  —  the  terror  in  Jerusalem,  Simon  Bar-Gioras, 
commandant  in  the  city,  John  of  Giscala  with  his 
assassins,  master  of  the  temple.  Fanatical  move- 
ments are  far  from  excluding  hate,  jealousy,  and 
defiance,  from  those  who  take  part  in  them.  Very 
decided  and  j)assionate  men  associated  together 
ordinarily  suspect  each  other,  and  in  this  there  is 
a  force  ;  for  reciprocal  suspicion  establishes  terror 
among  them,  binds  them  as  with  an  iron  chain, 
hinders  defections  and  moments  of  weakness. 
Interest  creates  the  coterie.     Absolute  principles 


ROME   AN]^   CHRISTIANITY.  79 

create  division,  and  inspire  the  temptation  to  deci- 
mate, to  expel,  to  kill  enemies.     Those  who  judge 
human  affairs  superficially  believe  that  a  revolu- 
tion is  quelled  when  the  revolutionists  "  eat  one 
another,"  as  it  is  expressed.     It  is,  on  the  contrary, 
a  proof  that  the  revolution  has  all  its  energy,  that 
an  impersonal  ardor  presides  over  it.     This  is  no- 
where more  clearly  seen  than  in  the  terrible  drama 
at  Jerusalem.     The  actors  seem  to  have  entered 
into    the    compact   of    death   like    some   infernal 
rounds,  in  which,  according  to  the  belief  of  the 
middle  ages,  Satan  was  seen  forming  a  chain  to 
draw  into  a  fantastic  gulf  numbers  of  men,  dancing, 
and  holding  each  other  by  the  hand.     So  revolu- 
tion allows  no  one  to  escape  from  the  dance  which 
it  leads.     Terror  is  behind  the  lukewarm.     Turn 
by  turn,  exalting  some,  and  exalted  by  others,  they 
rush  into  the  abyss.     None  can  recede  ;  for  behind 
each  one  is  a  concealed  sword,  which,  at  the  mo- 
ment that  he  wishes  to  draw  back,  forces  him  to 
advance. 

The  strangest  thing  of  all  is  that  these  madmen 
were  not  wholly  wrong.  The  fanatics  of  Jerusa- 
lem, who  affirmed  that  Jerusalem  was  eternal  even 
while  it  was  burning,  were  nearer  the  truth  than 
those  who  regarded  them  as  mere  assassins.  They 
deceived  themselves  upon  the  military  question, 
but  not  upon  the  distant  religious  result.  These 
troubled  days  point  out,  in  fact,  the  moment  when 


80  ENGLISH   CONFEEENCES. 

Jerusalem  became  the  spiritual  capital  of  the 
world.  The  Apocalypse,  a  burning  expression  of 
the  love  which  she  inspired,  has  taken  its  place 
among  the  religious  writings  of  humanity,  and  has 
there  consecrated  the  image  of  the  beloved  city. 
Ah,  how  important  it  is  never  to  predict  the  future 
of  a  saint  or  a  villain,  a  fool  or  a  sage  !  Jeru- 
salem, a  city  of  common  people,  would  have  pur- 
sued indefinitely  its  uninteresting  history.  It  is 
because  it  had  the  incomparable  honor  of  being 
the  cradle  of  Christianity,  that  it  was  the  victim 
of  the  Johns  of  Giscala,  of  the  Bar-Gioras,  —  in 
appearance  the  scourges  of  their  country,  in  reality 
the  instruments  of  its  apotheosis.  These  zealots, 
whom  Josephus  treats  as  brigands  and  assassins, 
were  politicians  of  the  highest  order,  but  unskil- 
ful soldiers  :  still  they  lost  heroically  a  country 
which  could  not  be  saved.  They  lost  a  material 
city :  they  established  the  spiritual  reign  of  Jeru- 
salem, sitting  in  her  desolation  far  more  glorious 
than  she  was  in  the  days  of  Herod  aM  of  Solo- 
mon. What  did  these  conservatives,  these  Sad- 
ducees,  really  desire  ?  They  wished  something 
mean,  —  the  continuation  of  a  cit}^  of  priests  like 
Emesa,  Tyane,  Comane.  Assuredly  they  did  not 
deceive  themselves  when  they  declared  that  the 
surging  enthusiasm  was  the  ruin  of  the  nation. 
Revolution  and  Messianism  destroyed  the  nation- 
al existence  of  the  Jewish  people ;  but  revolution 


ROME   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  81 

and  Messianism  were  the  true  vocation  of  this 
people,  —  that  by  which  they  contributed  to  the 
universal  civilization. 

IT. 

The  victory  of  Rome  was  complete.  A  captair 
of  our  race,  of  our  blood,  a  man  like  us,  at  the 
head  of  legions  in  whose  roll,  if  we  could  read  it, 
we  should  meet  many  of  our  ancestors,  had  come 
to  crush  the  fortress  of  Semitism,  to  inflict  upon 
the  revealed,  accepted  law  the  greatest  injury 
which  it  had  received.  It  was  the  triumph  of  Ro- 
man right,  or  rather  rational  right,  a  creation 
utterly  philosophical,  presupposing  no  revelation, 
above  the  Jewish  Thora,  the  fruit  of  a  revelation. 
This  right,  whose  roots  were  partly  Greek,  but  in 
which  the  practical  genius  of  the  Latins  made  so 
fine  a  part,  was  the  excellent  gift  which  Rome 
brought  to  the  vanquished  in  return  for  their  in- 
dependence. Each  victory  for  Rome  was  a  vic- 
tory for  right.  Rome  bore  into  the  world  a  better 
principle  in  several  respects  than  that  of  the  Jews : 
I  mean  the  profane  state,  reposing  on  a  purely 
civil  conception  of  society.         ,. 

The  triumph  of  Titus  was  then  legitimate  in 
many  ways,  and  still  there  never  was  a  more  use- 
less triumph.  The  deplorable  religious  nothing- 
ness of  Rome  rendered  its  victory  unfruitful. 
This  victory  did  not  retard  the  progress  of  Juda- 


82  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

ism  a  single  day :  it  did  not  give  the  religion  of 
the  empire  an  added  chance  to  struggle  against 
this  redoubtable  rival.  The  national  existence 
of  the  Jewish  people  was  lost  forever ;  but  that 
was  a  blessing.  The  true  glory  of  Judaism  was 
Christianity,  about  to  be  born.  The  ruin  of  Jeru- 
salem and  the  temple  was  an  unequalled  good  for 
Christianity. 

If  the  reasoning  of  Titus  according  to  Tacitus  is 
correctly  reported,  the  victorious  general  believed 
that  the  destruction  of  the  temple  would  be  the 
ruin  of  Christianity  as  well  as  that  of  Judaism. 
No  one  was  ever  more  completely  deceived.  The 
Romans  imagined,  that,  in  tearing  up  the  root,  they 
should  eradicate  the  shoot  at  the  same  time ;  but 
the  shoot  was  already  a  shrub  that  lived  its  own 
life.  If  the  temple  had  survived,  Christianity 
would  certainly  have  been  arrested  in  its  develop- 
ment. The  surviving  temple  would  have  con- 
tinued to  be  the  centre  of  all  Judaic  works.  It 
would  always  have  been  regarded  as  the  most  holy 
place  of  the  world :  pilgrims  would  have  come 
there,  and  would  there  have  brought  their  tributes. 
The  Church  of  Jerusalem,  grouped  around  by 
consecrated  parvises,  would  have  continued,  by 
the  strength  of  its  primacy,  to  receive  the  hom- 
age of  all  the  world,  to  persecute  the  Chris- 
tians of  the  Church  of  Paul,  to  exact,  that,  in 
order  to  have  the  right  to  call  one's  self  the  dis- 


HOME   AND    CHRISTIANITY.  83 

ciple  of  Jesus,  one  should  practise  the  circumcision, 
and  observe  the  Mosaic  code.  All  effectual  propa- 
gandism  would  have  been  interdicted :  letters  of 
obedience  signed  at  Jerusalem  would  have  been 
exacted  from  the  missionary.  A  centre  of  irref- 
ragable authority,  a  patriarchate  composed  of  a 
sort  of  college  of  cardinals  under  the  presidency 
of  men  like  James,  pure  Jews  belonging  to  the 
family  of  Jesus,  would  have  been  established,  and 
would  have  constituted  an  immense  danger  for 
the  new-born  Church.  When  one  sees  St.  Paul 
after  so  many  mishaps  remaining  always  attached 
to  the  Church  of  Jerusalem,  one  understands  what 
difficulties  a  rupture  with  these  holy  personages 
would  have  presented.  Such  a  schism  would 
have  been  considered  as  an  enormity.  The  sepa- 
ration from  Judaism  would  have  been  impossible ; 
and  this  separation  was  the  indispensable  con- 
dition of  the  existence  of  the  new  religion.  The_ 
mother  was  about  to  kill  the  child.  The  temple, 
on  the  contrary,  once  destroyed,  the  Christians 
thought  no  more  of  it :  very  soon,  indeed,  they  will 
consider  it  a  profane  place  :  Jesus  will  be  every 
thing  to  them.  The  Christian  Church  of  Jeru- 
salem was  by  the  same  stroke  reduced  to  a  secon- 
dary importance.  It  was  re-organized  around  the 
element  which  made  its  force,  the  desposyni^  the 
members  of  the  family  of  Jesus,  the  sons  of 
Clopas ;  but  it  will  reign  no  more.     Tl^is  centre 


84  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

of  hate  and  exclusion  once  destroyed,  the  recon- 
ciliation of  the  opposing  parties  in  the  Church  of 
Jesus  will  become  easy.  Peter  and  Paul  will  be 
brought  into  accord,  and  the  terrible  duality  of 
the  new-born  Christianity  will  cease  to  be  a  mor- 
tal sore.  Lost  in  the  depth  of  the  interior  of  the 
Batansea  and  the  Hauran,  the  little  group  which 
attached  itself  to  James  and  Clopas  becomes  the 
Ebionite  sect,  and  slowly  dies. 

These  relatives  of  Jesus  were  pious,  tranquil, 
mild,  modest,  hard-working  men,  faithful  to  the 
severest  precepts  of  Jesus  concerning  poverty, 
but  at  the  same  time  very  exact  Jews,  considering 
the  title  of  "  Child  of  Israel "  before  every  other 
advantage.  From  the  year  70  to  about  the  year 
110,  they  really  governed  the  churches  beyond 
the  Jordan,  and  formed  a  sort  of  Christian  senate. 
There  is  no  need  to  demonstrate  the  immense 
danger  which  these  pre-occupations,  with  genealo- 
gies, were  to  the  new-born  Christianity.  A  sort 
of  nobility  of  Christianity  was  about  to  be  formed. 
In  the  political  order  the  nobility  is  almost  a 
necessity  to  the  state.  I^olitics  having  elements 
of  gross  struggles  which  render  it  more  material 
than  ideal,  a  state  is  very  strong  only  when  a 
certain  number  of  families  has,  by  tradition  and 
privilege,  the  duty  and  interest  of  guarding  its 
welfare,  representing  and  defending  it.  But,  in 
the  order  of  the  ideal  government,  birth  is  noth 


ROME   AND   CHEISTIANITY.  85 

ing :  each-  one  is  valued  in  proportion  to  the  truth 
he  shows,  and  the  good  he  does.     The  institutions 
which  have  a  religious,  literary,  moral  end,  are  lost, 
when  considerations  of  family,  caste,  heredity,  pre- 
vail in  them.     The  nephews  and  cousins  of  Jesus 
would  have   ruined  Christianity,  if  the   churches 
of   Paul  had  not  already  been  strong  enough  to 
act  as  a  counterpoise  to  this  aristocracy,  the  ten- 
dency of  which  would  have  been  to  proclaim  it- 
self alone  respectable,  and  to  treat  all  converts  as 
intruders.    Some  pretensions  analogous  to  those  of 
the  Alides  in  Islam  were    established.     Islamism 
would  certainly  have   perished  under  the  embar- 
rassment caused  by  the  family  of  the  prophet,  if 
the  result  of  the  struggles  of  the  first  century  of 
the  Hegira  had  not  been  to  reject,  upon  second 
thought,  all  those  who  were  too  near  the  person 
of  the  prophet     The  true  heirs  of   a  great  man 
are   those    who    continue    his  work,  and   not   his 
relatives  by  blood.     Considering  the  tradition  of 
Jesus  as  his  own  possession,  the  little   coterie   of 
the  Nazarenes,  as  they  are  called,  would  certainly 
have   stifled   it.     Happily  this   narrow  circle  dis- 
appeared in  good  season:    the  relatives  of  Jesus 
were  soon  forgotten  in  the  interior  of  the  Hauran. 
They  lost  all  importance,  and  left  Jesus  to  his  true 
family,  the  only  one  which  he  has  recognized,  — 
those  of  whom  he  said,  ''  They  hear  the  word  of 
God,  and  keep  it." 


86  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

III. 

According  as  the  Church  of  Jerusalem  sank, 
the  Church  of  Rome  rose,  or,  rather,  a  phenome- 
non was  evidently  manifested  in  the  years  which 
followed  the  victoryL_ofL. Titus.  It  was  that  the 
Church  of  Rome  became  more  and  more  the  in- 
heritor and  the  substitute  of  the  Church  of  Jeru- 
salem. The  spirit  of  the  two  churches  was  the 
same:  what  was  a  danger  at  Jerusalem  became 
an  advantage  at  Rome.  The  taste  for  tradition 
and  the  hierarchy,  and  the  respect  for  authority, 
were  in  some  sort  transplanted  from  the  parvises 
of  the  temple  to  the  Occident.  James,  the  brother 
of  the  Lord,  had  been  a  sort  of  pope  at  Jerusalem. 
Rome  is  about  to  take  up  the  part  of  James.  We 
shall  have  the  pope  at  Rome.  Without  Titus,  we 
should  have  had  the  pope  in  Jerusalem,  hnjj 
with  this  great  difference,  that  the  pope  at  Jeru- 
salem would  have  extinguished  Christianity  in^ 
about  one  or  two  hundred  years,  while  the  Pope 
of  Rome  has  made  it  the  religion  of  the  universe. 

Here  appears  a  very  important  person,  who 
seems  to  have  been  the  head  of  the  Roman  Church 
in  the  early  years  of  the  first  century,  concerning 
whom  I  am  happy  to  find  myself  in  accord  with 
one  of  your  most  scholarly  and  enlightened  critics, 
Mr.  Lightfoot.  I  speak  of  Clement  Romanus.  In 
the  penumbra  in  which  he  remains,  enveloped  and 


ROME   AND    CHRISTIANITY.  87 

almost  lost  in  the  luminous  dust  of  a  beautiful  far- 
off  history,  Clement  is  one  of  the  grand  figures  of 
early  Christianity :  one  would  say  that  it  was  the 
head  of  an  old  effaced  fresco  of  Giotto's,  recog- 
niz[n)]oTtTn  from  his  golden  aureola,  and  some  dim 
features  of  striking  purity  and  sweetness.  One 
thing  is  beyond  doubt :  it  is  the  high  rank  Avhich 
h^^eld  in  the  utterly  spiritual  hierarchy  of  the 
church  of  his  time,  and  the  unequalled  credit  Avith 
whieli  he  sustained  it.  His  approval  made  the  law. 
All  parties  clung  to  him,  and  wished  to  shield 
themselves  under  his  authority.  It  is  probable 
that  he  was  one  of  the  most  energetic  agents  of 
the  grand  work  that  was  about  to  be  accomplished : 
I  mean  the  posthumous  reconciliation  of  Peter 
and  Paul,  without  which  union  the  work  of  Christ 
could  only  have  perished.  His  high  personality, 
aggrandized  by  tradition,  was,  after  that  of  Peter, 
the  most  holy  figure  of  the  primitive  Christian 
Rome.  *■ 

Already  the  idea  of  a  certain  primacy  in  the 
Church  of  Rome  be^an  to  show  itself.  The  rig-ht 
of  advising  the  other  churches  and  of  settling 
their  differences  w^as  accorded  to  this  church.  It 
is  believed  that  like  privileges  had  been  allowed 
to  Peter  among  the  disciples.  Now  a  still  closer 
bond  was  established  between  Peter  and  Rome. 
In  the  time  of  Clement,  great  dissensions  divided 
the  Church  at  Corinth.    The  Roman  Church,  being 


88  ENGLISH   CONFEEENCES. 

applied  to  in  these  troubles,  replied  by  an  epistle, 
which  has  been  preserved  to  us.  The  epistle  is 
anonymous ;  but  a  very  ancient  tradition  teaches 
that  Clement  was  the  author  of  it.  The  Church 
at  Corinth  had  changed  but  little  since  St.  Paul. 
It  had  the  same  proud,  disputant,  feeble  spirit.  It 
is  evident  that  the  principal  opposition  to  the 
hierarchy  was  found  in  this  Greek  spirit,  always 
mobile,  because  it  was  always  full  of  life,  undisci- 
plined (and  for  my  part  I  like  it),  not  knowing 
how  to  form  a  flock  from  a  crowd.  The  women 
and  the  children  were  in  full  revolt.  Some  supe- 
rior doctors  imagined  that,  they  possessed  a  pro- 
found sense  in  every  thing,  and  mystic  secrets 
analogous  to  the  gift  of  tongues  and  the  discern- 
ment of  spirits.  Those  who  were  honored  with 
these  supernatural  gifts  scorned  the  ancients,  and 
aspired  to  replace  them.  Corinth  had  a  respecta- 
ble presbytery,  which,  however,  did  not  receive  the 
highest  mysticism.  The  advanced  pretenders  cast 
it  in  the  shade,  and  put  themselves  in  its  place. 
Some  of  the  prenhyteri  were  even  dismissed.  The 
struggle  between  the  established  hierarchy  and 
personal  revelations  began,  and  this  struggle  fills 
the  history  of  the  Church ;  the  privileged  soul 
complaining,  that,  in  spite  of  the  favors  with  which 
it  is  honored,  a  gross  clergy,  wanting  in  spiritual 
life,  dominates  it  officially.  We  see  that  this 
was  the  heresy  of  individual  mysticism,  maintain- 


EOME   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  89 

ing  the  rights  of  the  spirit  against  authority,  pre- 
tending to  rise  above  common  mortals  and  the 
ordinary  clergy  by  right  of  its  direct  intercourse 
with  divinity. 

The  Roman  Church  was  always  the  church  of 
order,  of  subordination,  and  of  rule.  Its  funda- 
mental principle  was  that  humility  and  submission 
w'CTrof  more  value  than  the  most  sublime  gifts. 
Its  epistle  is  the  first  manifestation  in  the  Chris- 
tian Church  of  the  principle  of  authority. 

A  few  years  since,  there  was  much  surprise 
when  a  French  archbishop,  then  a  senator,  said 
in  the  Tribune,  "My  clergy  is  my  regiment." 
Clement  had  said  this  before  him.  Order  and 
obedience  were  the  supreme  laws  of  the  family 
and  the  church.  "  Let  us  consider  the  soldiers 
who  serve  under  our  sovereigris.  With  what 
order,  what  punctuality,  what  submission,  they 
obey  their  commands :  all  are  not  prefects,  nor  tri- 
bunes, nor  centurions ;  but  each  one  in  his  rank 
executes  the  orders  of  the  emperor  and  of  his 
chiefs.  The  great  cannot  exist  without  the  small, 
nor  the  small  without  the  great.  In  every  thing 
there  is  a  mingling  of  diverse  elements,  and  by 
this  mingling  all  advances.  Let  us  take,  for  exam- 
ple, our  bodies.  The  head  is  nothing  without  the 
feet ;  the  feet  are  nothing  without  the  head.  The 
smallest  of  our  organs  are  necessary,  and  serve 
the  whole  body :  all  conspire,  and  obey  the  same 


90  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

principle  of  subordination  for  the  preservation  of 
the  whole." 

The  history  of  the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy  is 
the  history  of  a  triple  abdication ;  the  community 
of  the  faithful  first  placing  all  its  powers  in  the 
hands  of  the  ancients,  or  ijresbyteri ;  the  presby- 
teral  body  at  length  delegating  its  authority  to  one 
person  who  was  the  episeo2:)os  ;  then  the  cpiscojn  of 
the  Latin  Church  recognized  as  their  head  one 
of  themselves,  who  became  the  pope.  This  last 
progress,  if  we  may  call  it  so,  was  not  accomplished 
until  our  time.  The  creation  of  the  episcopate, 
on  the  contrary,  was  the  work  of  the  second  cen- 
tury. The  absorption  of  the  church  by  the  pres- 
hyteri  was  accomjDlished  before  the  year  100.  In 
the  Epistle  of  Clement  Romanus  it  is  not  yet  with 
the  episcopate,*  but  with  the  presbytery,  that  he 
deals.  We  find  there  no  trace  of  a  pre^byteros 
superior  to  the  others,  and  entitled  to  dethrone 
them ;  but  the  author  proclaims  positively  that 
the  presbytery  and  the  clergy  are  above  the 
people.  The  apostles,  in  establishing  churches, 
chose  through  the  inspiration  of  the  Spirit  the 
"  bishops  and  the  deacons  of  the  future  believers." 
The  power  emanating  from  the  apostles  has  been 
transmitted  by  regular  succession.  No  church  has 
then  the  right  to  dethrone  its  seniors.  The  privi- 
lege of  the  rich  is  nothing  in  the  church.  Accord- 
ingly, those  who  are  favored  with  mystic  gifts,  in- 


ROTHE    AND   CHRISTIANITY.  91 

stead  of  believing  themselves  above  the  hierarchy, 
should  be  the  more  submissive.  This  involves  the 
great  problem,  "  Who  exists  in  the  church  ?  Is 
it  the  people  ?  Is  it  the  clergy  ?  Is  it  inspira- 
tion ? "  This  problem  was  already  given  in  the 
time  of  St.  Paul,  who  resolved  it  in  the  true  man- 
ner by  mutual  charity.  One  epistle  trenches  upon 
the  question  in  the  sense  of  pure  Catholicism. 
The  apostolic  title  is  every  thing:  the  right  of 
the  people  is  reduced  to  nothing.  We  may  then 
safely  assert  that  Catholicism  had  its  origin  at 
Rome,  since  the  Church  of  Rome  laid  down  its 
first  rules.  Prescience  pertains  to  spiritual  gifts, 
to  science  and  distinction  :  it  belongs  to  the  hie- 
rarchy, to  the  powers  transmitted  through  the 
medium  of  the  canonical  ordination,  which  attaches 
itself  to  the  apostles  by  an  unbroken  chain.  The 
free  chui'ch  as  Christ  conceived  it,  and  as  St.  Paul 
also  regarded  it,  was  a  Utopia  which  held  nothing 
for  the  future.  Evangelical  liberty  had  destroyed 
it ;  and  it  was  not  realized,  that,  with  the  hierarchy 
uniformity  and  death  would  come  in  time. 

IV. 

Cle:ment  had  probably  not  seen  either  Peter  or 
Paul.  His  great  practical  sense  showed  him  that 
the  salvation  of  the  Christian  Church  demanded 
the  reconciliation  of  the  two  founders.     Did  he 


92  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

influence  the  author  of  the  Acts  which  represent 
to  us  this  reconciliation  as  accomplished,  and  with 
whom  he  seems  to  have  had  some  intercourse,  or 
did  these  two  pious  souls  spontaneously  fall  into 
accord  on  account  of  the  bias  which  he  had  given 
to  Christian  opinion  ?     We  are  ignorant  for  want 
of  proofs.     One  thing  is  sure,  the  reconciliation  of 
Peter  and  Paul  was  a  Roman  work.     Rome  had 
two  churches,  —  one  coming  from  Peter,  the  other 
from  Paul.     Those  numerous  converts  wdio  came 
to  Jesus  —  some  through  the  school  of  Peter,  and 
some  through  that  of  Paul  —  were  tempted  to  ex- 
claim, "What!     Are  there,  then,  two  Christs?" 
It  was  necessary  to  be  able  to  reply,  "  No  :  Peter 
and   Paul   understand   each  other  perfectly:  the 
Christianity   of    one   is   the    Christianity   of    the 
other."     Perhaps  (this  is  an  ingenious  hypothesis 
of  M.  Strauss)  a  light  cloud  was  introduced  for 
this  purpose  into  the  evangelical  legend  of  the 
miraculous  fishing.     According  to  the  recital  of 
Luke,   the  nets  of  Peter  would  not  contain  the 
multitudes  of  fish  which  could  easily  have  been 
taken ;  Peter  was  obliged  to  make  a  sign  to  his 
co-workers  to  come   to   his  aid.     A  second  bark 
(Paul  and  his  friends)  was  filled  as  the  first,  and 
the  fishing   of  the  kingdom   of  God  was   super- 
abundant. 

The  life  of  the  apostles  begins  to  become  ob- 
scure.    All  those  who  have  seen  them  have  disap- 


ROME   AXD    CHRISTIANITY.  93 

peared  :  most  of  them  left  no  writings.     One  had 
entire  liberty  to  embroider  on  this  virgin  canvas 
still.      Friends  and  enemies  profited  by  the   un- 
known to  set  up  arguments  in  support  of  their 
theses,  and  to  satisfy  their  hates.     Towards  the 
year  130,  that  is  to  say  about  sixty-six  years  after 
the  death  of  the  apostles,  a  vast  Ebionite  legend 
was  produced  at  Rome,  and  designated  by  the  title 
of  the  preaching,  or  the  travels,  of  Peter.      The 
missions  of  the  chief  of  the  apostles  were  recounted 
there,  principally  those  along  the   coast  of  Phoe- 
nicia ;  the  conversions  which  he  had  made  ;  above 
all,   his   struggles   against   the   great   anti-Christ, 
Simon  the  Magician,  who  was  at  this  epoch  the 
spectre    of    the    Christian    conscience.      But   fre- 
quently under  this  abhorred  name  another  person 
was  concealed :  it  was  the  false  apostle  Paul,  the 
enemy  of  the  law,  the  veritable  destroyer  of  the 
Church.     The  true  Church  was  that  at  Jerusalem, 
presided  over  by  James,  the  brother  of  the  Lord. 
No  apostolate  was  of  any  value,  if  it  could  not 
show  letters  emanating  from  this  central  college. 
Paul  had  none :  therefore  he  was  an  intruder.     He 
was  the  "  man  enemy,"  who  came  behind  to  sow 
the  tares  in  the  steps  of  the  true  sower.     With 
what  fury  Peter  gave  the  denial  to  his  impostures, 
to  his  false  allegations  of  personal  revelations,  his 
ascension  to  the  third  heaven,  his  pretension  of 
knowing  about  Jesus  some  things  which  the  hear- 


94  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

ers  of  the  gospel  had  not  understood,  the  exagge- 
rated manner  in  which  he  and  his  disciples  inter- 
preted the  divinity  of  Jesus  I 

These  strange  ideas  of  half  ignorant  sectaries 
would  have  been  without  consequences  outside  of 
Rome  ;  but  every  thing  which  related  to  Peter  as- 
sumed importance  in  the  capital  of  the  world.  In 
spite  of  its  heresies,  "  The  Preachings  of  Peter  " 
had  much  interest  for  the  orthodox.  The  primacy 
of  Peter  was  there  proclaimed.  St.  Paul  was  thus 
injured ;  but  a  few  retouches  extenuated  what  was 
shocking  in  these  attacks.  Several  attempts  were 
made  to  diminish  the  peculiarities  of  the  new  book, 
and  adapt  it  to  the  Catholics.  This  mode  of  re- 
modelling books  to  suit  the  sect  to  which  one 
belonged  was  the  order  of  the  clay.  Little  by 
little  the  force  of  things  was  understood :  all  sensi- 
ble men  saw  that  there  was  safety  for  the  work  of 
Jesus  only  in  the  perfect  reconciliation  of  the  two 
heads  of  the  Christian  doctrine.  Paul  had,  even 
in  the  sixth  century,  some  bitter  enemies :  he  had 
always  some  enthusiastic  followers  like  Marcion. 
Outside  of  these  obstinate  men  of  the  right  and 
left,  there  was  a  union  of  the  moderate  masses, 
who,  before  their  Christianism  in  one  of  the 
schools,  fully  recognized  the  right  of  the  other  to 
be  called  Christian.  James,  the  partisan  of  abso- 
lute Judaism,^ was  sacrificed,  although  he  had 
been  the  true   chief  of  the  circumcision.     Peter, 


ROME   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  95 

who  was  much  less  objectionable  to  the  disciples 
of  Paul,  was  preferred  before  him.  James  re- 
tained no  devoted  partisans  outside  of  the  Judean- 
Christians. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  who  gained  the  most  in  this 
reconciliation.  The  concessions  came  principally 
from  the  side  of  Paul :  all  Paul's  disciples  received 
the  others  without  difficulty,  while  those  of  Peter 
repulsed  the  followers  of  Paul.  But  concessions 
usually  come  from  the  strong.  In  truth,  each  day 
confirmed  Paul's  victory. 

Each  Gentile  convert  weighted  the  balance  on 
his  side.  Outside  of  Syria,  the  Judean-Christians 
were  swallowed  up  by  the  wave  of  new  converts. 
The  churches  of  Paul  prospered:  they  had  good 
judgment,  solidity  of  mind,  and  some  pecuniary 
resources  which  the  others  had  not.  The  Ebionite 
churches,  on  the  contrary,  grew  poorer  each  day. 
The  money  of  the  churches  of  Paul  was  spent  in 
the  support  of  some  glorious  poor  men,  who  were 
unable  to  earn  any  thing,  but  who  possessed  the 
traditional  life  of  the  primitive  spirit.  The  ele- 
vated piety  and  severe  manners  of  these  last  were 
admired  by  the  Christian  communities  of  Pagan 
origin,  who  imitated  and  assimilated  themselves  to 
these  customs.  It  soon  happened  that  no  distinc- 
tion was  manifest :  the  sweet  and  conciliatory 
spirit  of  St.  Luke  and  Clement  Romanus  pre- 
vailed.    The  compact  of  peace  was  sealed.    It  was 


96  ENGLISH   CONFE^NCES. 

agreed  that  Peter  had  converted  "^fe^e  first-fruits  of 
the  Gentiles,  that  he  had  first  absolved  them  from 
the  yoke  of  the  law.  It  was  admit ted^that  Peter 
and  Paul  had  been  the  two  heads,  the  founders  of 
the  Church  of  Rome ;  Peter  and  Paul  became  the 
halves  of  an  inseparable  couple,  —  two  luminaries, 
like  the  sun  and  moon.  What  one  taught,  the 
other  taught  also.  They  had  always  been  in 
accord :  they  had  opposed  the  same  enemies,  had 
been  victims  of  Simon  the  Magician.  At  Rome 
they  lived  like  brothers;  the  Church  of  Rome 
was  their  common  work.  The  supremacy  of  this 
church  was  established  for  ages. 

Thus,  from  the  reconciliation  of  these  parties, 
the  settlement  of  these  primitive  struggles,  there 
came  forth  a  grand  unity,  —  the  Catholic  Church, 
the  Church  of  Peter  and  of  Paul,  a  stranger  to 
the  rivalries  which  had  marked  the  first  century. 

It  was,  above  all,  the  death  of  the  two  apostles 
which  pre-occupied  the  parties,  and  gave  an  oppor- 
tunity for  the  most  diverse  combinations.  The 
tissue  of  tradition  grew  in  this  respect,  by  an  in- 
stinctive travail,  almost  as  imperious  as  that  which 
had  presided  at  the  construction  of  the  legend  of 
Jesus.  The  end  of  the  life  of  Peter  and  of  Paul 
was  commanded  a  priori.  It  was  maintained  that 
Christ  had  predicted  the  martyrdom  of  Peter,  as 
he  had  announced  the  death  of  the  sons  of  Zebe- 
dee.     The  need  was  felt  of  associating  in  death 


KOME   AND    CHRISTIANITY.  97 

the  two  persons  who  had  been  reconciled  by  force. 
It  was  hoped,  and  perhaps  this  was  not  far  from 
right,  that  they  died  together,  or  at  least  as  the 
consequence  of  the  same  event.     The  places  which 
were   believed    to   have   been   sanctified  by   this 
bloody  drama  were  early  fixed  upon,  and  conse- 
crated by  memorice.     In  each  case,  whatever  the 
people  desired  came  in  the  end  to  be  true.     Tra- 
dition makes  history,  retrospectively,  as  it  ought 
to  have  been,  and  as  it  never  is.     Not  long  ago 
the  portraits  of  Victor  Emmanuel  and  Pius  IX. 
hung  side  by  side  in  every  frequented   place   in 
Italy ;  and  the  people  desired  that  these  two  men, 
who    represented   principles  whose    reconciliation 
was  generally  considered  necessary  to  Italy,  should 
be  in  reality  completely  united.     If,  in  our  time, 
such  views  impose  themselves  on  history,  it  will 
one  day  appear,  in  documents  reputed  to  be  seri- 
ous, that  Victor  Emmanuel  and  Pius  IX.  (probably 
Garibaldi  will  be  added)  met  each  other  secretly, 
understood   and  loved   each   other.     During   the 
middle  ages,  at  different   times,  similar  attempts 
were  made  to  appease  the  hatreds  of  the  Domini- 
cans and  Franciscans ;  to  prove  that  the  founders 
of  these  two  orders  were  two  brothers  living  to- 
gether in  the  ftiost  affectionate  intercourse ;  that 
at  first  their  rules  were  the  same ;    and  that  St. 
Dominic  girded  himself  with  the  cord  of  St.  Fran- 
cis. 


98  ENGLISH   CONFEEENCES. 

Concerning  Peter  and  Paul,  the  increase  of  the 
legend  was  rich  and  rapid.  Rome  and  all  its  envi- 
rons, above  all  the  way  to  Ostia,  were  full  of 
souvenirs  which  were  pretended  to  be  connected 
with  the  last  days  of  the  two  apostles.  A  crowd 
of  touching  circumstances  ;  the  flight  of  Peter ;  the 
vision  of  Jesus  bearing  his  cross,  iterum  crucify i  ; 
the  final  adieu  of  Peter  and  Paul ;  the  meeting  of 
Peter  with  his  wife ;  Paul  at  the  Salvian  waters  ; 
Plautilla  sending  the  handkerchief  which  bound 
her  hair  to  bandage  the  eyes  of  Paul,  —  all  this  pre- 
sented a  beautiful  ensemble,  to  which  was  only 
wanting  an  ingenuous  and  skilful  writer.  It  was 
too  late ;  the  vein  of  the  first  Christian  literature 
was  spent;  the  serenity  of  the  narrator  of  the 
Acts  was  lost;  his  voice  was  raised  no  more  in 
story  or  in  romance.  It  is  impossible  to  choose 
between  a  crowd  of  equally  apocryphal  writings : 
in  vain  one  seeks  to  shield  these  recitals  with  the 
most  venerable  names  (pseudo-Linus,  pseudo-Mar- 
cellus) ;  the  Roman  legend  of  Peter  and  Paul 
remains  always  in  a  sporadic  state.  It  was  more 
often  recounted  by  the  pious  guides  than  seriously 
read.  It  was  a  local  affair :  no  text  concerning  it 
has  been  consecrated  and  made  authoritative  for 
reading  in  the  churches.  * 

Many  among  you,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  will  go 
to  Rome,  or  will  return  there.     Ah,  well !  if  you 


KOME   AND    CHRISTIANITY.  99 

preserve  any  good  remembrance  of  these  confer- 
ences, go,  in  memory  of  me,  to  the  Salvian  waters, 
alle  tre  fontane,  to  St.  Paul-without-the-Walls.  It 
is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  parts  of  the  Roman 
Campagna,  —  deserted,  damp,  green,  and  sad. 
There,  in  a  deep  depression  in  the  soil,  crowned 
by  those  grand  horizontal  lines,  disturbed  by  no 
living  detail,  —  there  are  some  clear  and  cold 
springs.  The  fever  and  mouldiness  of  the  tomb' 
are  inhaled  there.  Some  Trappists  are  there  estab- 
lished, conscientiously  practising  their  religious 
suicide.  When  you  are  there,  sit  down  a  moment, 
not  too  long  (one  quickly  catches  the  fever  there), 
and,  while  the  Trappists  give  yoji  to  drink  the 
water  which  gushes  from  the  three  bounds  which 
the  head  of  Paul  made,  think  of  him  who  came 
here  to  talk  of  these  legends  with  you,  and  to 
whom  you  have  listened  with  so  much  courtesy 
and  kind  attention. 


FOUETH    COIsTFEEEI^GE, 

London,  April  14,  1880. 


ROME, 
THE  CAPITAL  OF  CATHOLICISM. 


FOUETH    CONFERENCE. 

EOIVIE,   THE   CAPITAL   OF   CATHOLICISM. 

m 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  —  It  is  plain  that  the 
importance  of  the  churches  in  the  primitive  Chris- 
tian community  was  in  proportion  to  their  apos- 
tolic nobility.  The  guaranty  of  orthodoxy  was 
in  the  succession  of  the  bishops,  by  which  the 
great  churches  were  linked  to  the  apostles.  A 
direct  line  appeared  to  afford  a  very  strong  assur- 
ance of  conformity  of  doctrine,  and  it  was  jealously 
maintained.  Now,  what  can  be  said  of  a  church 
founded  by  both  Peter  and  Paul  ?  It  is  clear  that 
such  a  church  ought  to  endure  in  order  to-  have  a 
veritable  superiority  over  others.  The  chef-d'oeuvre 
of  the  competency  of  the  Roman  Church  was  the 
establishment  of  this  superiority.  That  once 
assured,  the  ecclesiastical  destiny  of  Rome  was 
established.  When  this  city  should  have  cast  off 
her  secular  character,  she  would  have  another,  — 
a  sacred  capacity,  corresponding  to  that  of  Jeru- 
salem. 

She  would  know  how  to  confiscate  to  her  profit 
this  Christianity  which  she  had  so  cruelly  combat- 

103 


104  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

ed,  —  so  mucli  had  humanity  suffered,  to  escape 
from  those  whom  fate  had  designed  for  this  great 
secular  task,  regere  imperio  populos  ! 

Under  Antonine  and  Marcus  Aurelius,  Rome 
reached  its  highest  grandeur ;  its  rule  of  the  whole 
world  seemed  to  be  undisputed ;  no  cloud  could 
be  seen  upon  its  horizon.  The  emigration  from 
the  provinces,  above  all  from  the  Orient,  was 
augmented  rather  than  lessened.  The  Greek- 
speaking  population  was  larger  than  it  had  ever 
been.  All  who  desired  a  place  in  the  world 
aspired  to  come  to  Rome :  nothing  was  sanctioned 
until  it  had  received  the  stamp  of  this  universal 
exposition  of  the  products  of  the  entire  universe. 

The  centre  of  a  future  catholic  orthodoxy  was 
evidently  there.  The  well-developed  germ  of  the 
Papacy  existed  under  Antonine.  The  Church  of 
Rome  showed  itself  more  and  more  indifferent  to 
those  crude  Gnostic  speculations  which  occupied 
some  minds  filled  with  the  intellectual  activity  of 
the  Greeks,  but  tainted  with  the  reveries  of  the 
Orient.  The  organization  of  Christian  society 
was  the  principal  labor  at  Rome.  This  extraordi- 
nary city  applied  to  this  object  the  energetic  moral 
strength  and  the  practical  genius  which  she  has 
employed  in  the  most  diverse  causes.  Careless  of 
speculation,  decidedly  hostile  to  dogmatic  innova- 
tions, she  presided  there,  —  a  mistress  already 
trained  by  all  the  changes  which  had  been  brought 
about  in  discipline  and  in  the  hierarchy. 


EOME   AXD   CHEISTIANITY.  105 


I. 

Feom  the  year  120  to  130  the  Episcopate  was 
elaborated  in  the  Christian  Church,  and  the 
creation  of  the  Episcopate  was  eminently  a  Roman 
work.  All  ecclesice  imply  a  little  hierarchy, — a 
bureau  as  it  is  called  to-day,  —  a  president,  some 
assessors,  and  a  small  staff  of  men  in  its  service. 
Democratic  associations  are  careful  that  these 
functions  shall  be  limited  as  far  as  possible  as  to 
power  and  duration;  but  from  this  arises  that 
precarious  something  which  has  prevented  any 
democratic  association  from  outlasting  the  cir- 
cumstances which  have  created  it.  The  Jewish 
synagogues  have  had  more  continuity,  although  the 
synagogical  body  has  never  come  to  be  a  clergy. 
This  is  the  result  of  the  subordinate  place  which 
Judaism  has  held  during  several  centuries:  the 
pressure  from  without  has  counteracted  the  effects 
of  internal  divisions.  If  the  Christian  Church 
had  been  left  with  the  same  absence  of  director- 
ship, it  would  doubtless  have  missed  its  destiny. 

If  its  ecclesiastical  powers  had  continued  to  be 
regarded  as  emanating  from  the  Church  itself,  it 
would  have  lost  all  its  hieratic  and  theocratic  char- 
acter. It  was  written,  on  the  contrary,  that  a 
clergy  should  monopolize  the  Christian  Church, 
and  substitute  themselves  for  it.  Acting  as  its 
spokesman,   presenting  itself  as   having   the  sole 


106  ENGLISH   CONFEEENCES.  -jr 

power  of  attorney  in  every  thing,  this  clergy  will 
be  its  strength,  and  at  the  same  time  its  gnawing 
worm,  —  the  principal  cause  of  its  future  falls. 

I  repeat,  that  history  has  no  example  of  a  more 
complete  transformation  than  that  which  occurred 
in  the  government  of  the  Christian  Church  about 
the  time  of  Hadrian  and  Antonine.  What  hap- 
pened in  the  Christian  Church  will  happen  in  any 
association  in  which  the  subordinates  could  resign 
in  favor  of  the  bureau,  and  that  again  in  favor  of 
the  president ;  so  that  afterwards  the  subordi- 
nates and  the  seniors  would  have  no  deliberative 
voice  nor  influence,  nor  any  control  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  funds,  and  the  president  would  be 
able  to  say,  "  I  alone,  I,  am  the  association."  The 
py^eshyteri  (seniors)  or  episcopi  (superintending 
ofQcers)  became  very  soon  the  only  representa- 
tives of  the  Church ;  and  almost  immediately 
another  still  more  important  revolution  took  place. 
Among  the  preshyte^^i  or  e^nscopi^  there  had  been 
one,  who,  through  the  habit  of  occupying  the  prin- 
cipal seat,  absorbed  the  power  of  the  -others,  and 
became  pre-eminently  the  episcopos  or  the  presby- 
teros.  The  form  of  worship  contributed  power- 
fully to  the  establishment  of  this  unity.  The 
eucharistic*"act  could  only  be  celebrated  by  one 
person,  and  gave  to  the  celebrant  an  extreme 
importance.  That  episcopos^  with  a  surprising 
rapidity,  became  the  head  of  the  presbytery,  and, 


ROME   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  107 

consequently,  the  entire  Churcli.  His  cathedra 
was  placed  apart,  and,  having  the  form  of  an  arm- 
chair, became  the  seat  of  honor,  the  symbol  of 
primacy.  From  this  time,  each  church  has  but 
one  chief  preshyteros,  who  is  thus  called  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  other  episcojn.  Beside  this  bishop, 
there  were  deacons,  widows,  and  a  council  of  p7-es- 
hyteri :  but  the  great  step  has  been  taken  ;  the 
bishop  is  the  sole  successor  of  the  prophets,  his 
associates  have  disappeared.  ApostoHc  authority, 
reputed  as  transmitted  by  the  laying-on  of  hands, 
suppressed  the  authority  of  the  community.  The 
bishops  of  the  various  churches  soon  placed  them- 
selves in  communication  with  the  others,  and 
formed  of  the  Universal  Church  a  sort  of  oligarchy, 
which  held  assemblies,  censured  its  members,  de- 
cided questions  of  faith,  and  was  in  itself  a  true 
sovereign  power.  On  one  side,  the  shepherds  ;  on 
the  other,  the  flock.  Primitive  equality  no  longer 
existed:  in  fact,  it  had  endured  but  a  single  day. 
The  Church,  however,  was  only  an  instrument  in 
the  hands  of  those  who  guided  her ;  and  these  held 
their  power,  not  from  the  community,  but  from 
the  spiritual  inheritance  of  a  transmission  claim- 
ing to  date  back  to  the  apostles  in  a  continuous 
line.  It  is  evident  that  the  representative  system 
will  never  be  in  any  degree  whatever  the  law  of 
the  Christian  Church. 

It  was  the  Episcopate,  without  the  intervention 


108  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

of  civil  power,  with  no  support  from  the  tribunals, 
which  thus  established  order  above  liberty  in  a 
society  originally  founded  upon  individual  inspira- 
tion. This  is  why  the  Ebionites,  who  had  no 
Episcopate,  had  also  no  idea  of  Catholicity.  At 
first  sight,  the  work  of  Jesus  was  not  made  to  last. 
Founded  upon  a  belief  in  the  destruction  of  the 
world,  which,  as  years  rolled  on,  was  proved  an 
error,  it  seemed  that  his  congregation  could  only 
dissolve  in  anarchy.  The  prophetic  book,  the 
charismes,  the  speaking  of  tongues,  individual  in- 
spiration, were  no  more  than  were  necessary  to 
bring  all  again  into  the  proportions  of  a  common 
chapel.  Individual  inspiration  created,  but  im- 
mediately destroyed  what  it  created.  After  liber- 
ty, law  is  necessary.  The  work  of  Jesus  might 
be  considered  as  saved  the  day  in  which  it  was 
admitted  that  the  Church  has  a  direct  power,  a 
power  representing  that  of  Jesus.  Since  then  the 
Church  dominates  the  individual,  drawing  him  to 
her  bosom  through  his  need.  Inspiration  passes 
from  the  individual  to  the  community.  The  clergy 
is  the  dispenser  of  all  pardons,  the  intermediary 
between  God  and  the  faithful.  Obedience,  first 
to  the  Church,  then  to  the  bishop,  becomes  the 
highest  duty.  Innovation  is  the  sign  of  error : 
schism,  henceforth,  will  be  for  the  Christian  the 
worst  of  crimes. 

In  a  certain  regard  one  may  say  that  this  was  ^ 


ROME   AND    CHRISTIANITY.  109 

decadence,  a  diminution  of  that  sjjontaneity  which 
had  been  eminently  creative  nntil  now.      It  was 
evident   that   ecclesiastical   forms  were    about   to 
absorb,  to  stifle,  the  work  of  Jesus,  that  all  free 
manifestations   of    Christian   life   would   soon   be 
arrested.      Under  the  censure  of  the  Episcopate, 
the  speaking  of  tongues,  prophecy,  the  creation  of 
legends,  the  making  of  new  sacred  books,  would 
soon  become  withered  powers,  the  charismes  would 
be   reduced   to    official    sacraments.      In   another 
sense,  however,    such    a   transformation   was   the 
essential  condition  of   the  strength  of  humanity. 
And,  moreover,  the  centralization  of  powers  be- 
came  necessary   when    churches   were   more   nu- 
merous :    intercourse    between   these   little   pious 
societies   would    be   impossible,    unless   they   had 
representatives  appointed  to  act  for  them.     It  is 
undeniable,  moreover,   that,  without   the    Episco- 
pate,   the    churches,  re-united   for  a  time  by  the 
souvenirs   of   Jesus,  would   gradually  have   been 
dispersed.     The  divergences  of  opinion,  the  differ- 
ence in  the  turn  of  imagination,  and,  above  all,  the 
rivalries,  and  the  unsatisfied  amGiirs-jjropres,  would 
have  operated  by  their  infinite  effects  of  disunion 
and  disintegration.      Christianity  would  have  ex- 
pired at  the  end  of  three  or  four  centuries,  like 
Mithracism  and  so   many  other  sects  which  were 
not  allowed  to  endure.     Democracy  is  sometimes 
eminently  creative;  but  it  is  upon  the  condition 


110  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

tliat  the  democracy  comes  forth  from  conservative 
institutions  which  prevent  the  revolutionary  fever 
from  prolonging  itself  indefinitely. 

Here  was  the  greatest  miracle  of  the  new  Chris- 
tianity. It  drew  order,  hierarchy,  authority,  and 
obedience  from  the  free  subjection  of  desires :  it 
organized  the  crowd ;  it  disciplined  anarchy. 
What  does  this  miracle  accomplish  other  than  to 
strike  at  the  pretended  derogations  to  the  laws  of 
physical  nature  ?  The  spirit  of  Jesus  strongly 
inoculated  in  his  disciples  that  spirit  of  sweetness, 
of  abnegation,  of  forgetfulness  of  the  present; 
that  unique  pursuit  of  interior  joys  which  kills 
ambition ;  that  strong  preference  given  to  child- 
hood ;  those  words  repeated  without  ceasing,  as 
from  Jesus,  "  Whoever  is  first  among  you,  let  him 
be  the  servant  of  all."  The  influence  of  the  apos- 
tles was  not  less  in  that  direction.  The  apostles 
lived  and  ruled  after  their  death.  The  idea  that 
the  head  of  the  Church  held  his  command  under 
the  members  of  the  Church  who  had  elected  him 
never  once  occurs  in  the  literature  of  this  time. 
The  Church  thus  escaped  through  the  supernatu- 
ral origin  of  its  power,  that  element  of  decay 
which  exists  in  delegated  authority.  A  legislative 
and  executive  authority  may  come  from  the  peo- 
ple ;  but  sacraments  and  dispensations  of  celestial 
pardons  have  nothing  in  common  with  universal 
suffrage.     Such  privileges  come  from  heaven,  or, 


ROME  AND   CHRISTIANITY.  Ill 

according  to   the   Christian  formula,  from   Jesus 
Christ,  the  source  of  all  pardon  and  of  all  good. 

The  religion  of  Jesus  thus  became  something 
solid  and  consistent.  The  great  danger  of  Gnos- 
ticism, which  was  to  divide  Christianity  into  num- 
berless sects,  was  exorcised.  The  word  "  Catholic 
Church  "  resounded  everywhere,  as  the  name  of 
that  great  body  which  would  thenceforth  survive 
the  ages  unbroken.  The  character  of  this  catho- 
licity is  already  seen.  The  Montanists  are  regarded 
as  sectarian  ;  the  Marcionites  are  convinced  of  the 
falseness  of  the  apostolic  doctrine ;  the  different 
Gnostic  schools  are  more  and  more  driven  from  the 
bosom  of  the  general  church.  Something  had  arisen 
which  was  neither  Montanism,  nor  Marcionism,  nor 
Gnosticism;  which  was  Christianity,  not  sectarian, 
—  the  Christianity  of  the  majority  of  bishops,  resist- 
ing sects,  and  using  them  all,  having,  if  you  will, 
only  negative  characters,  but  preserved  by  these 
negative  characters  from  the  pietist  aberrations,  and 
from  dissolving  rationalism.  Christianity,  like  all 
parties  who  wish  to  live,  disciplines  itself,  and  re- 
strains its  own  excesses.  It  unites  to  mystical  ex- 
altation a  fund  of  good  sense  and  moderation  which 
will  kill  Millenarism,  Charisms,  Glossolaly,  and 
all  the  primitive  phenomenal  spirits.  A  handful 
of  excited  men,  like  the  Montanists,  running  into 
martyrdom,  discouraging  penitence,  condemning 
marriage,  are  not  the  Church.     The  juste  milieu 


112  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

triumphs.  Radicals  of  any  sort  will  never  be  al- 
lowed to  destroy  the  work  of  Jesus.  The  Church 
is  always  of  a  medium  opinion :  it  belongs  to  all 
the  world,  and  is  not  the  privilege  of  an  aristoc- 
racy. The  pietist  aristocracy  of  the  Phrygian 
sects  and  the  speculative  aristocracy  of  the  Gnos- 
tics are  equally  stripped  of  their  pretensions. 

In  the  midst  of  the  enormous  variety  of  opinions 
which  fill  the  first  Christian  age,  the  Catholic  opin- 
ion constitutes  a  sort  of  standard.  It  was  not 
necessary  to  reason  with  the  heretic  in  order  to 
convince  him.  It  was  sufficient  to  show  him  that 
he  was  not  in  communion  with  the  Catholic  Church, 
with  the  grand  churches  which  trace  the  succession 
of  their  bishops  to  the  apostles.  Quod  semper^  quod 
ubiqice  became  the  absolute  rule  of  truth.  The 
argument  of  prescription  to  which  Tertullian  gave 
such  eloquent  force  reviews  all  the  Catholic  con- 
troversy. To  prove  to  any  one  that  he  was  an 
innovator,  a  disturber,  was  to  prove  that  he  was 
wrong,  —  an  insufficient  rule,  since,  by  a  singular 
irony  of  fate,  the  doctor  himself  who  developed 
this  method  of  refutation  in  so  imperious  a  man- 
ner, Tertullian,  died  a  heretic. 

Correspondence  between  the  churches  was  an 
early  custom.  Circular  letters  from  the  heads  of 
the  great  churches,  read  on  Sunday  in  the  re- 
unions of  the  faithful,  were  a  sort  of  continuation 
of    the    apostolic   literature.      The    ecclesiastical 


KOME   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  113 

province,  questioning  the  precedency  of  the  great 
churches,  appeared  in  germ.  The  Church,  like  the 
synagogue  and  the  mosque,  is  essentially  a  citadel. 
Christianity,  like  Judaism  and  Islamism,  is  a 
religion  of  cities.  The  countryman,  the  ^:>a//anMS, 
will  be  the  last  resistance  which  Christianity  will 
encounter.  The  few  rural  Christians  came  to  the 
church  of  the  neighboring  city.  The  Roman 
municipality  thus  enclosed  the  church.  Among 
the  cities,  the  civitas^  the  grand  city,  was  alone  a 
veritable  church,  with  an  episcopos.  The  small 
city  was  in  ecclesiastical  dependence  on  the  great 
city.  This  primacy  of  the  great  cities  was  an 
important  fact.  The  great  city  once  converted, 
the  small  city  and  the  country  followed  the  move- 
ment. The  diocese  was  thus  the  unity  of  the 
conglomerate  Christians.  As  for  the  ecclesiastical 
province,  it  corresponded  to  the  Roman  province : 
the  divisions  of  worship  of  Rome  and  Augustus 
were  the  secret  law  which  ruled  all.  Those  cities 
which  had  a  flamen,  or  archiereus,  are  those  which 
later  had  an  archbishop:  the  flamen  civltatis 
became  the  bishop.  After  the  third  century,  the 
flamen  held  the -rank  in  the  city  which  was  later 
that  of  the  bishop  in  the  diocese.  Thus  it  hap- 
I  pened  that  the  ecclesiastical  geography  of  a 
/  country  was  very  nearly  the  geography  of  the 
1|  same  country  in  the  Roman  epoch.  The  picture 
of  the  bishops  and  the  archbiiihops  is  that  of  the 


114  ENGLISH  CONFERENCES. 

ancient  civitates,  according  to  their  line  of  subordi- 
nation. The  empire  was  as  the  mould  in  which 
the  new  religion  was  formed.  The  interior  frame- 
work, the  outlines,  the  hierarchical  divisions,  were 
those  of  the  empire.  The  ancient  archives  of  the 
Roman  administration,  and  the  church-registers  of 
the  middle  ages,  and  even  those  of  our  own  day, 
are  nearly  the  same  thing. 

Thus  the  grand  organisms  which  have  become 
so  essential  a  part  of  the  moral  and  political  life  of 
European  nations  were  all  created  by  those  naive 
and  sincere  Christians,  whose  faith  has  become 
inseparable  from  the  moral  culture  of  humanity. 
The  Episcopate  under  Marcus  Aurelius  was  fully 
ripe :  the  Papacy  existed  in  germ.  (Ecumenical 
councils  were  impossible.  The  Christian  Empire 
alone  could  authorize  great  assemblies;  but  the 
provincial  synod  was  used  in  the  aifairs  of  the 
Montanists  and  of  the  Passover.  The  bishop  of 
the  capital  of  the  province  was  allowed  to  pre- 
side without  contest.    ■ 

II. 

Rome  was  the  place  in  which  the  grand  idea  of 
Catholicity  was  conceived.  Rome  became  each 
day  more  and  more  the  capital  of  Christianity, 
and  replaced  Jerusalem  as  the  religious  centre  of 
humanity.  Its  church  had  a  generally  recognized 
precedence  over  others.     All   doubtful   questions 


EOME  AND   CHRISTIANITY.  115 

which  disturbed  the  Christian  conscience  de- 
manded an  arbitration,  if  not  a  solution,  at  Rome. 
This  very  defective  reasoning  was  used,  —  that, 
since  Christ  had  made  Cephas  the  corner-stone  of 
his  church,  this  privilege  ought  to  extend  to  his 
successors.  By  an  unequalled  stroke,  the  Church 
of  Rome  had  succeeded  in  making  itself  at  the 
same  time  the  Church  of  Peter  and  the  Church  of 
Paul,  a  new  mythical  duality,  replacing  that  of 
Romulus  and  Remus.  The  Bishop  of  Rome 
became  the  bishop  of  bishops,  the  one  who  admon- 
ished others.  Rome  proclaims  its  right  (a  dan- 
gerous right)  to  excommunicate  those  who  do  not 
entirely  agree  with  her.  The  poor  Artemonites 
(a  sort  of  anticipated  Arians)  had  much  to  com- 
plain of  in  the  injustice  of  the  fate  which  made 
them  heretics;  while,  even  until  Victor,  all  the 
Church  of  Rome  thought  with  them  ;  but  they 
were  not  heard.  From  this  point,  the  Church  of 
Rome  placed  itself  above  history.  The  spirit 
which  in  1870  could  proclaim  the  infallibility  of 
the  Pope  might  see  itself  reflected  at  the  end 
of  the  second  century  by  certain  clear  indications. 
The  writing  made  at  Rome  about  180,  of  which 
the  Roman  fragment  known  as  the  "  Canon  de 
Mur atari''  makes  a  part,  shows  us  Rome  already 
regulating  the  canon  of  the**  churches,  making 
the  passion  of  Peter  the  basis  of  Catholicit}', 
and  repulsing  equally  Montanism  and  Gnosticism. 


116  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

Irenseris  refutes  all  heresies  by  the  faith  of  this 
church,  "  the  grandest,  the  most  ancient,  the  most 
illustrious,  which  possesses  by  continuous  succes- 
sion the  true  tradition  of  the  apostles  Peter  and 
Paul ;  to  which,  on  account  of  its  primacy,  all  the 
rest  of  the  Church  should  have  recourse." 

One  material  cause  contributed  much  to  that 
pre-eminence  which  most  of  the  churches  recog- 
nized in  the  Church  of  Rome.  This  Church  was 
extremely  rich :  its  goods,  skilfully  administered, 
served  to  succor  and  propagate  other  churches. 
The  heretics  condemned  to  the  mines  received 
a  subsidy  from  it :  the  common  treasury  was  in  a 
certain  sense  at  Rome.  The  Sunday  collection, 
practised  continually  in  the  Roman  Church,  was 
probably  already  established.  A  marvellous  spirit 
of  tradition  animated  this  little  communitj^,  in 
which  Judiea,  Greece,  and  Latium  seemed  to  have 
confounded  their  very  different  gifts,  in  view  of  a 
prodigious  future.  Wliile  the  Jewish  Monotheism 
furnished  the  immovable  base  of  the  new  forma- 
tion, while  Greece  continued  through  Gnosticism 
its  work  of  free  speculation,  Rome  attached  itself 
with  an  astonishing  readiness  to  the  work  of  the 
government.  All  its  authorities  and  artifices 
served  well  for  that.  Politics  recoils  not  before 
fraud.  Now,  politics  had  already  taken  up  its 
home  in  the  most  secret  councils  of  the  Church  of 
Rome.     Some  veins  of  apocryphal  literature,  con- 


EOME  AND   CHRISTIANITY.  117 

stantly  refilled,  sometimes  under  the  name  of  the 
apostles,  sometimes  under  that  of  apostolic  person- 
ages, such,  as  Clement  and  Hermas,  were  received 
with  confidence  to  the  limits  of  the  Christian 
world  on  account  of  the  guaranty  of  Rome. 

This  precedence  of  the  Church  of  Rome  con- 
tinued to  increase  up  to  the  third  century.  The 
bishops  of  Rome  showed  a  rare  competency,  evad- 
ing theological  questions,  but  always  in  the  first 
rank  in  matters  of  organization  and  administra- 
tion. The  tradition  of  the  Roman  Church  passes 
for  the  most  ancient  of  all.  Pope  Cornelius  took 
the  lead  in  the  matter  of  substitution.  This  was 
particularly  seen  in  the  dismissal  of  the  bishops  of 
Italy,  and  the  appointment  of  their  successors. 
Rome  was  also  the  central  authority  of  the 
churches  of  Africa. 

This  authority  was  already  excessive,  and  showed 
itself  above  all  in  the  affair  of  the  Passover.  This 
question  was  much  more  important  than  it  appears 
to  us.  In  the  early  times  all  Christians  continued 
to  make  the  Jewish  Passover  their  principal  feast. 
They  celebrated  this  feast  on  the  same  day  as 
the  Jews,  —  on  the  14th  of  Nisan,  upon  whatever 
day  of  the  week  it  happened  to  fall.  Persuaded, 
according  to  the  account  of  all  the  old  gospels, 
that  Jesus,  the  evening  before  his  death,  had  eaten 
the  Passover  with  his  disciples,  they  regarded  such 
a  solemnity  as  a  commemoration  of  the  last  supper, 


118  ENGLISH   CONFEBENCES. 

rather  than  as  a  memorial  of  the  resurrection. 
As  Christianity  became  more  and  more  separated 
from  Judaism,  such  a  manner  of  regarding  it  was 
very  much  questioned.  At  first  a  new  tradition 
was  promulgated,  —  that  Jesus,  being  about  to  die, 
had  not  eaten  the  Passover,  but  had  died  the  very 
day  of  the  Jewish  feast,  thus  constituting  himself 
the  Pascal  Lamb.  Moreover,  this  purely  Jewish 
feast  wounded  the  Christian  conscience,  especially 
in  the  churches  of  Paul.  The  great  feast  of  the 
Christians,  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  occurred  in 
any  case  the  Sunday  after  the  Jewish  Passover. 
According  to  this  idea,  the  feast  was  celebrated 
the  Sunday  which  followed  the  Friday  after  the 
14th  of  Nisan. 

In  Pome  this  custom  prevailed,  at  least  since 
the  pontificates  of  Xystus  and  Telesphorus  (about 
120).  In  Asia  there  were  great  divisions.  The 
conservatives,  like  Polycarp,  Meliton,  and  all  the- 
ancient  school,  believed  that  the  old  Jewish  cus- 
tom conformed  to  the  first  Gospels  and  to  the 
usage  of  the  apostles  John  and  Philip.  This  was 
the  object  of  the  voyage  to  Rome  which  Polycarp 
undertook  about  the  year  154,  under  the  Pope 
Anicetus.  The  interview  between  Polycarp  and 
Anicetus  was  very  cordial.  The  discussion  of 
certain  points  appears  to  have  been  sharp,  but 
they  understood  each  other.  Polycarp  was  not 
able  to  persuade  Anicetus  to  renounce  a  practice 


ROME   AND    CHRISTIANITY.  119 

which  had  been  that  of  the  bishops  of  Rome 
before  his  time.  Anicetus,  on  the  other  hand, 
hesitated  when  Polycarp  told  him  that  he  gov- 
erned himself  according  to  the  rule  of  John  and 
the  other  apostles,  with  whom  he  had  lived  on 
a  familiar  footing.  The  two  religious  leaders  re- 
mained  in  full  communion  with  each  other ;  and 
Anicetus  showed  Polycarp  an  almost  unprece- 
dented honor.  In  fact  he  desired  that  Polycarp, 
in  the  Assembly  of  the  Faithful  at  Rome,  should 
pronounce,  in  his  stead  and  in  his  presence,  the 
words  of  the  eucharistic  consecration.  These 
ardent  men  were  full  of  too  lofty  a  sentiment  to 
rest  the  unity  of  their  souls  upon  the  uniformity 
of  rites  and  exterior  observances. 

Later,  unhappily,  Rome  took  the  stand  of  in- 
sisting upon  its  right.  About  the  year  196  the 
question  was  more  exciting  than  ever.  The 
churches  of  Asia  persisted  in  their  old  usage. 
Rome,  always  enthusiastic  for  unity,  wished  to 
coerce  them.  Upon  the  invitation  of  Pope  Victor, 
convocations  of  bishops  were  held :  a  vast  corre- 
spondence was  exchanged.  But  the  bishops  of 
Asia,  strong  in  the  tradition  of  two  apostles  and 
of  so  many  illustrious  men,  would  not  submit. 
The  old  Polycrates,  Bishop  of  Ephesus,  wrote  in 
their  name  a  very  sharp  letter  to  Victor  and  to 
the  Church  of  Rome.  The  incredible  design  which 
Victoy  conceived  on  account  of  the  acrimony  of 


120  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

this  letter  proves  that  the  Papacy  was  already 
born,  and  well  born.  He  pretended  to  excommu- 
nicate, to  separate  from  the  Universal  Church,  the 
most  illustrious  province,  because  it  had  not  bent 
its  traditions  before  the  Roman  discipline.  He 
published  a  decree  by  virtue  of  which  Asia  was 
placed  under  the  ban  of  the  Christian  community. 
But  the  other  bishops  opposed  this  violent  meas- 
ure, and  recalled  Victor  to  charity.  St.  Irenseus, 
in  particular,  who,  through  the  necessity  of  the 
country  in  which  he  lived,  had  accepted  for  him- 
self and  his  churches  in  Gaul  the  Occidental  cus- 
tom, could  not  support  the  thought  that  the 
mother-churches  of  Asia,  to  which  he  felt  himself 
bound  in  the  dejDths  of  his  soul,  should  be  sep- 
arated from  the  body  of  the  Universal  Church. 
He  energetically  persuaded  Victor  from  the  ex- 
communication of  the  churches  which  held  to  the 
traditions  of  their  fathers,  and  recalled  to  him 
the  examples  of  his  more  tolerant  predecessors. 
This  act  of  rare  good  sense  prevented  the  schism 
of  the  Orient  and  the  Occident  from  occurring  in 
the  second  century.  Irenseus  wrote  to  the  bishops 
on  «all  sides,  and  the  question  remained  open  to 
the  churches  of  Asia. 

In  one  sense,  the  process  which  brought  about 
the  debate  was  of  more  importance  than  the 
debate  itself.  By  reason  of  this  difference,  the 
Church  was  brought  to  a  clearer  idea  of  its  or- 


ROME   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  121 

ganization.  And  first  it  was  evident  that  the 
laity  were  no  longer  any  thing.  The  bishops 
alone  handled  qnestions,  and  promulgated  their 
opinions.  The  bishops  collected  together  in  pro- 
vincial synods,  over  which  the  bishop  of  the  capi- 
tal of  the  province  presided  (the  archbishop  of 
the  future),  or,  at  times,  the  oldest  bishop.  The 
synodal  assembly  came  out  with  a  letter,  which 
was  sent  to  other  churches.  This  was  then  like  an 
attempt  at  federative  organization,  —  an  attempt 
to  resolve  questions  by  means  of  provincial  as- 
semblies, presided  over  by  bishops  agreeing  among 
themselves.  Later,  questions  concerning  the  pre- 
siding over  synods  and  the  hierarchy  of  the 
Church  sought  solution  in  the  documents  of  this 
great  debate.  Among  all  the  churches,  that  of 
Rome  appeared  to  have  a  particular  initiative 
right.  But  that  initiative  was  far  from  being 
synonymous  with  infallibility;  for  Eusebius  de- 
clares that  he  read  the  letters  in  which  the  bish- 
ops severely  blamed  the  conduct  of  Victor. 

III. 

Authority,  gentlemen,  loves  authority.  The 
authoritaires,  as  we  say  to-day,  in  the  most  diverse 
ranks,  extend  the  hand  to  each  other.  Men  as 
conservative  as  the  leaders  of  the  Church  of 
Rome  must  be  strongly  tempted  to  favor  public 


122  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

force,  the  effect  of  which  is  often  for  good,  as 
they  must  admit.  This  tendency  had  been  mani- 
fest since  the  first  days  of  Christianity.  Jesus 
had  laid  down  the  rule.  The  image  of  the  money 
was  for  him  the  supreme  criterion  of  its  lawful- 
ness, beyond  which  there  was  nothing  to  seek. 
In  the  height  of  the  reign  of  Nero,  St.  Paul  wrote, 
"  Let  every  soul  be  subject  unto  the  higher  pow- 
ers. For  there  is  no  power  but  of  God:  the 
powers  that  be  are  ordained  of  God.  Whosoever, 
therefore,  resisteth  the  power,  resisteth  the  ordi- 
nance of  God."  Some  years  later,  Peter,  or  the 
person  who  wrote  in  his  name  the  Epistle  known 
as  the  First  of  Peter,  expresses  himself  in  an 
identical  manner.  Clement  was  an  equally  de- 
voted subject  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

In  fine,  one  of  the  traits  of  St.  Luke  (accord- 
ing to  my  idea  there  was  a  bond  between  St.  Luke 
and^he  spirit  of  the  church  at  Rome)  is  his 
respect  of  the  imperial  authority,  and  the  precau- 
tions which  he  took  not  to  injure  it.  The  author 
of  the  Acts  evaded  every  thing  which  would  pre- 
sent the  Romans  as  the  enemies  of  Christ.  On 
the  contrary,  he  seeks  to  show,  that,  under  many 
circumstances,  they  defended  St.  Paul  and  the 
Christians  against  the  Jews.  Never  a  disparaging 
word  against  the  civil  magistrates.  Luke  loved 
to  show  how  the  Roman  functionaries  were  favor- 
able to  the  new  religion,  sometimes  even  embra- 


ROME  AND   CHRISTIANITY.  123 

cing  it;  and  how  Roman  justice  was  equitable,  and 
superior  to  the  passions  of  the  local  powers.  He 
insists  upon  the  advantages  which  Paul  owed  to 
his  title  of  Roman  citizen.  If  he  ends  his  recital 
with  the  arrival  of  Paul  at  Rome,  it  is  perhaps 
in  order  not  to  recount  the  monstrosities  of  Nero. 
Without  doubt,  there  were  in  other  parts  of  the 
empire  devoted  Christians  who  sympathized  en- 
tirely with  the  anger  of  the  Jews,  and  dreamed 
only  of  the  destruction  of  the  idolatrous  city 
which  they  identified  with  Babylon.  Such  were 
the  authors  of  apocalypses  and  sibylline  writings. 
But  the  faithful  of  the  great  churches  were  of 
quite  a  different  way  of  thinking.  In  70,  the 
Church  of  Jerusalem,  with  a  sentiment  more 
Christian  than  patriotic,  left  the  revolutionary 
city,  and  sought  peace  beyond  the  Jordan.  In 
the  revolt  of  Barkokebas,  the  division  was  still 
more  pronounced.  Not  a  single  Christian  was 
willing  to  take  part  in  this  attempt  of  blind  de- 
spair. St.  Justin  in  his  Apologies  never  combats 
the  principle  of  empire.  He  desired  that  the 
empire  should  examine  the  Christian  doctrine, 
approve  and  countersign  it  in  some  way,  and  con- 
demn those  who  calumniated  it.  The  most  learned 
doctor  of  the  time  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  Meliton, 
Bishop  of  Sardis,  made  still  more  decided  ad- 
vances, and  undertook  to  show  that  there  is  always 
in  Christianity  something  to  recommend  it  to  a 


124  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

true  Roman.  In  his  Treaty  upon  Truth,  preserved 
in  Syriac,  Meliton  expresses  himself  in  the  same 
way  as  a  bishop  of  the  fourth  century,  explaining 
to  one  Theodosius  that  his  first  duty  is  to  estab- 
lish by  his  authority  the  triumph  of  truth  (with- 
out telling  us,  alas !  by  what  sign  one  recognizes 
truth).  Let  the  empire  become  Christian,  and 
the  persecuted  of  to-day  would  find  that  the  inter- 
ference of  the  state  in  the  domain  of  conscience 
is  perfg'ctly  legitimate. 

The  system  of  the  apologists,  so  warmly  sus- 
tained by  TertuUian,  according  to  which  the  good 
emj^erors  favored  Christianity,  and  the  bad  ones 
persecuted  it,  was  already  full  blown.  "  Born  to- 
gether," said  they,  "  Christianity  and  the  empire 
have  grown  up  together,  and  prospered  together." 
Their  interests,  their  sufferings,  their  fortunes, 
their  future,  —  all  was  in  common.  The  apolo- 
gists were  advocates ;  and  advocates  in  all  orders 
resemble  each  other.  They  have  arguments  for 
every  situation  and  all  tastes.  Nearly  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  rolled  on  before  these  sweet  and 
half  sincere  invitations  were  understood.  But  the 
only  impression  they  made  in  the  time  of  Marcus 
Aurelius  upon  the  mind  of  one  of  the  most  en- 
lightened leaders  of  the  Church  was  as  a  prog- 
nostic of  the  future.  Christianity  and  the  empire 
will  become  reconciled.  They  are  made  for  each 
other.     The  shade  of  Meliton  will  tremble  with 


ROME   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  '    125 

joy  when  the  empire  becomes  Christian,  and  the 
emperor  takes  in  hand  the  cause  of  truth. 

Thus  the  Church  already  took  more  than  one 
step  toward  empire.  Through  politeness,  without 
doubt,  but  only  as  a  very  legitimate  consequence 
of  his  principles,  JNleliton  does  not  allow  that  an 
emperor  can  give  an  unjust  order.  It  was  easy  to 
believe  that  certain  emperors  had  not  been  abso- 
lutely opposed  to  Christianity.  It  is  pleasant  to 
relate  that  Tiberius  had  proposed  to  place  Jesus 
in  the  rank  of  the  gods  :  it  was  the  senate  which 
objected.  The  decided  preference  of  Christianity 
for  power  where  it  hopes  for  favors  is  already  very 
transparent.  It  is  slxown,  contrary  to  all  truth, 
that  Hadrian  and  Antonine  sought  to  repair  the 
evil  done  by  Nero  and  Domitian.  Tertullian  and 
his  generation  say  the  same  thing  of  Marcus  Aure- 
lius.  Tertullian  doubted,  it  is  true,  whether  one 
could  be  at  the  same  time  a  Caesar  and  a  Chris- 
tian ;  but  this  incompatibility  a  century  later 
struck  no  one,  and  Constantine  proved  that  Meli- 
ton  of  Sardis  was  a  very  sagacious  man  when  he 
discerned  so  well  —  a  century  and  a  half  in  ad- 
vance, seeing  through  the  proconsular  persecutions 
—  the  possibility  of  a  Christian  Empire. 

The  hatred  of  Christianity  and  of  the  empire 
was  that  of  men  who  must  one  day  love  them. 
Under  the  Severi,  the  language  of  the  Church  re- 
mained plaintive  and  tender,  as  it  had  been  under 


126  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

tlie  Antonines.  The  apologists  affixed  a  species 
of  legitimism,  a  pretension  that  the  Church  had 
always  from  the  first  saluted  the  emj)eror.  "•  There 
•«tvere  never  among  us,"  said  Tertullian,  "  partisans 
of  Cassius,  partisans  of  Albinus,  partisans  of  Ni- 
ger." Foolish  illusion  !  Certainly  the  revolt  of 
Avidius  Cassius  against  Marcus  Aurelius  was  a 
political  crime,  and  the  Christians  did  well  not  to 
be  involved  in  it.  As  for  Severus,  Albinus,  and 
Niger,  it  was  success  that  decided  between  them ; 
and  the  Church  had  no  other  merit  in  attaching 
itself  to  Severus  than  that  of  seeing  clearly  who 
would  the  be  strongest.  This  pretended  worship  of 
legitimacy  was  in  truth  only  the  worship  of  a  fixed 
fact.  The  principle  of  St.  Paul  bore  fruit :  ''  All 
power  comes  from  God:  he  who  holds  the  sword 
holds  it  from  God  for  good." 

This  correct  attitude  in  regard  to  power  clung 
to  exterior  necessities  as  much  as  to  the  principles 
which  the  Church  had  received  from  its  founders. 
The  Church  was  alread}^  a  powerful  association.  It 
was  essentially  conservative.  It  needed  order  and 
legal  guaranties.  This  was  admirably  shown  in  the 
act  of  Paul  of  Samos,  Bishop  of  Antioch,  under 
Aurelian.  The  Bishop  of  Antioch  had  become  a 
powerful  personage  at  this  epoch.  The  goods  of 
the  Church  were  in  his  keeping :  a  crowd  of  men 
lived  on  his  favors.  Paul  was  a  brilliant  man, 
somewhat  mystical,  worldly,  a  great  secular  lord, 


EO]\rE   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  127 

seeking  to  render  Christianity  acceptable  to  men 
of  the  world  and  authority.  The  Pietists,  as 
might  be  expected,  considered  him  heretical,  "and 
dismissed  him.  Paul  resisted,  and  refused  to  quit 
the  Episcopal  house.  See  into  what  the  most  ex- 
alted sects  are  led !  They  were  in  possession,  and 
who  could  decide  a  question  of  proprietorship  and 
possession,  if  not  the  civil  authority.  Aurelian, 
about  this  time,  passed  on  his  way  towards 
Antioch;  and  the  question  was  referred  to  him. 
Here  was  seen  tliis  original  spectacle  of  an  infidel 
sovereign  and  persecutor  deputed  to  decide  which 
was  the  true  bishop.  Aurelian  showed  under 
these  circumstances  remarkably  good  sense  for  a 
layman.  He  examined  the  correspondence  of  the 
two  bishops,  took  note  as  to  which  was  in  relation 
with  Rome  and  Italy,  and  decided  that  he  was  the 
true  Bishop  of  Antioch. 

Aurelian  made  some  objections  to  the  theologi- 
cal reasoning  used  on  this  occasion ;  but  one  fact 
was  evident :  it  was,  that  Christianity  could  not 
live  without  the  empire,  and  that  the  empire,  on 
the  other  hand,  could  not  do  better  than  adopt 
Christianity  as  its  religion.  The  world  desired  a 
religion  of  congregations,  of  churches,  or  of  syna- 
gogues and  chapels,  —  a  religion  in  which  the  es- 
sence of  the  worship  should  be  re-union,  associa- 
tion, and  fraternity.  Christianity  answered  to  all 
these  conditions.  Its  admirable  worship,  its  well- 
organized  clergy,  assured  its  future. 


128  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

Several  times  in  the  third  century  this  histori- 
cal necessity  fell  short  of  realization.  This  is  seen 
most  plainly  under  those  Syrian  emperors  whom 
their  quality  of  foreigners  and  base  origin  placed 
beyond  prejudices,  and  who,  in  spite  of  their 
vices,  inaugurated  a  largeness  of  ideas  and  a  toler- 
ance hitherto  unknown.  Those  Syrian  women  of 
Emesa,  —  Julia  Domna,  Julia  Msesa,  Julia  Mam- 
msea,  Julia  Soemia,  —  beautiful,  intelligent,  per- 
fectly fearless,  and  held  by  no  tradition  or  social 
law,  hesitated  at  nothing.  They  did  what  Roman 
women  would  never  have  dared.  They  entered 
the  Senate,  deliberated  there,  and  governed  the 
empire  effectively,  dreaming  of  Semiramis  and 
Nitocris.  The  Roman  worshijD  seemed  cold  and 
insignificant  to  them.  Not  being  bound  by  any 
family  reasons,  and  their  imagination  being  more 
in  harmony  with  Christianity  than  with  Italian 
Paganism,  these  women  amused  themselves  with 
the  recitals  of  the  deed  of  the  gods  upon  earth. 
Philostratus  enchanted  them  with  his  "Life  of 
Apollonius  Tyane."  Perhaps  they  had  more  than 
one  secret  affinity  with  Christianity.  Certainly 
Heliogabalus  was  mad  ;  and  yet  his  chimera  of  a 
central.  Monotheistic  worship,  established  at  Rome, 
and  absorbing  all  the  other  worships,  proved  that 
the  narrow  circle  of  ideas  of  the  Antonines  was 
broken.  Alexander  Severus  went  still  farther. 
He  was  sympathetic  with  the  Christians :  not  con- 


EOME   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  129 

tent  with  according  tliem  liberty,  he  placed  Jesus 
in  his  lararium  with  a  touching  eclecticism.  Peace 
seemed  to  be  made,  not,  as  under  Constantine,  by 
the  defection  of  one  of  the  parties,  but  by  a  large 
reconciliation.  The  same  thing  was  seen  again 
under  Philip  the  Arab,  in  the  East  under  Zenobia, 
and  generally  under  those  emperors  whose  foreign 
origin  placed  them  beyond  Roman  patriotism. 

The  struof^rle  redoubled  in  rage  when  those 
grand  reformers,  Diocletian  and  IVIaximian,  ani- 
mated by  the  ancient  spirit,  believed  themselves 
able  to  give  new  life  for  the  empire  by  holding  it 
to  the  narrow  circle  of  Roman  ideas.  The  Church 
triumphed  through  its  martyrs.  Roman  pride  was 
humbled.  Constantine  saw  the  interior  strength  of 
the  Church.  The  population  of  Asia  Minor,  Syria, 
Thrace,  and  Macedonia,  in  a  word  the  eastern 
part  of  the  empire,  was  already  more  than  half 
Christian.  His  mother,  who  had  been  a  servant  in 
an  inn  at  Kicomedia,  dazzled  his  eyes  with  the 
picture  of  an  Eastern  empire  having  its  centre  near 
Nicsea  or  Mcomedia,  whose  nerves  should  be  the 
bishops  and  those  multitudes  of  poor  matriculates 
of  the  Church  who  controlled  opinion  in  large 
cities.  Constantine  made  the  empire  Christian. 
From  the  Occidental  point  of  view,  that  was  as- 
tonishing; for  the  Christians  were  still  but  a 
feeble  minority  in  the  West:  in  the  Orient,  the 
politics  of  Constantine  was  not  only  natural,  but 
commanded. 


130  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

Wonderful  tiling !  The  city  of  Rome  received 
from  that  politics  the  heaviest  blow  it  had  ever 
suffered.  Christianity  was  successful  under  Con- 
stantine ;  but  it  was  Oriental  Christianity.  In 
building  a  new  Rome  on  the  Bosphorus,  Constan- 
tine  made  the  old  Rome  the  capital  of  the  West 
alone.  The  cataclysms  which  followed,  the  in- 
vasions of  the  barbarians  who  spared  Constan- 
tinople, and  fell  upon  Rome  with  all  their  weight, 
reduced  the  ancient  capital  of  the  world  to  a 
limited  and  often  humble  condition.  That  eccle- 
siastical primacy  of  Rome  which  burst  with  so 
much  effect  upon  the  second  and  third  centuries 
flourished  no  longer  when  the  Orient  had  an  ex- 
istence and  a  separate  capital.  Constantine  was 
the  real  author  of  the  schism  of  the  Latin  Church 
and  the  Church  of  the  Orient. 

Rome  took  its  revenge,  principally  by  the  serious- 
ness and  depth  of  its  spirit  of  organization.  What 
men  were  St.  Sylvester,  St.  Damasus,  and  Gregory 
the  Great !  With  an  admirable  courage  they  la- 
bored for  the  conversion  of  the  barbarians,  attached 
them  to  themselves,  and  made  them  their  friends 
and  subjects.  The  master-work  of  its  politics  was 
its  alliance  with  the  Carlovingian  house,  and  the 
bold  stroke  by  which  it  re-established  in  that 
house  the  empire  which  had  been  dead  three 
hundred  years.  The  Church  of  Rome  rose  again 
more  powerful  than  ever,  and  became  again  the 


EOME   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  131 

centre  of  all  the  grand  affairs  of  tlie   Occident 
during  eight  centuries.  , 

Here  my  task  is  ended,  gentlemen.  You  will 
confide  to  others  the  care  of  recounting  the  pro- 
digious history  of  the  feudal  church,  its  grandeurs 
and  its  abuses.  Another  still  will  show  you  the 
re-action  acrainst  these  abuses,  —  Protestantism  re- 
turning  to  the  primitive  idea  of  Christianity,  and 
dividing,  in  its  turn,  the  Latin  Church.  Each  one 
of  these  grand  historical  pages  will  have  its  charm 
and  its  instruction.  What  I  have  recounted  to 
you  is  full  of  grandeur.  One  is  impartial  only 
to  the  dead.  Since  Catholicism  was  an  inimical 
power,  a  danger  to  the  liberty  of  the  human  mind, 
it  was  right  to  oppose  it.  Our  age  is  the  age  of 
history,  because  it  is  the  age  of  doubt  upon  dog- 
matic matters:  it  is  the  age  in  which,  without 
entering  into  the  discussion  of  systems,  an  enlight- 
ened mind  says  to  itself,  '•'  If,  since  right  exists,  and 
so  many  thousand  symbols  have  made  the  preten- 
sion of  presenting  the  complete  truth,  and  if  this 
pretension  is  always  found  vaio,  is  it  indeed  prob- 
able that  I  shall  be  more  happy  than  so  many 
others,  and  that  the  truth  has  awaited  my  coming 
here  below  in  order  to  make  its  definite  revela- 
tion ? "  There  is  no  definite  revelation.  It  is 
the  touching  effort  of  man  to  render  his  destiny 
supportable.     But  its  reward  is  not  disdain,  it  is 


132  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

gratitude.  Whoever  believes  that  he  has  some- 
thing to  teach  us  concerning  our  destiny  and  our 
end  shoukl  be  Avetcome.  Recall  the  account  in 
your  old  histories  of  the  judicious  and  discreet 
words  of  the  Saxon  chief  of  Northumbria,  in  the 
assembly  where  the  question  was  discussed  con- 
cerning the  adoption  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Roman 
missionaries. 

''  Perhaps  thou  rememberest,  O  king  !  something 
which  happens  sometimes  in  the  winter  daj^s, 
when  thou  art  seated  at  table  with  thy  captains 
and  thy  men-at-arms  ;  that  a  good  fire  is  lighted, 
that  thy  chamber  is  very  warm,  while  it  rains, 
snows,  and  blows  without.  There  comes  a  little 
bird,  which  crosses  the  chamber  on  the  wing, 
entering  at  one  door,  and  going  out  by  the  other. 
The  moment  of  this  passage  is  full  of  sweetness 
for  him :  he  no  more  feels  the  rain  nor  the  storm. 
The  bird  is  gone  in  an  instant,  and  from  the 
winter  he  passes  again  into  the  w^inter.  Such 
seems  to  me  the  life  of  men  on  this  earth,  and  its 
course  of  a  moment,  compared  to  the  length  of 
time  which  precedes  and  follows  it.  The  time 
before  birth  and  after  death  is  gloomy.  It  tor- 
ments us  hj  its  impossibility  of  comprehension  : 
if,  then,  the  new  doctrine  can  teach  us  any  thing  a 
little  certain,  it  deserves  to  be  considered." 

Alas !  the  Roman  missionaries  did  not  bear 
this  minin^ura   of  certainty,  with  which  the  old 


ROME  AND   CHRISTIANITY.  133 

Northumbrian  chief,  sage  as  he  was,  declared  him- 
self content.  Life  always  appears  to  us  a  short 
passage  between  two  long  nights.  Ilappy  those 
who  can  sleep  in  the  empty  noise  of  menaces 
which  trouble  at  times  the  human  conscience,  and 
should  no  more  than  cradle  it !  One  thing  is  cer- 
tain :  it  is  the  paternal  smile  which  at  certain 
hours  pierces  nature,  attesting  that  one  eye  re- 
gards us,  and  one  heart  follows  us.  Let  us  guard 
ourselves  from  all  absolute  formula  which  might 
become  one  day  an  obstacle  to  the  free  expansion 
of  our  spirits.  There  is  no  religious  communion 
which  does  not  still  possess  some  gifts  of  life  and 
pardon  ;  but  it  is  on  the  condition  ouly  that  an 
humble  docility  succeeds  sympathetic  adhesion. 
The  comparison  of  the  regmient,  invented  by 
Clement  Romanus,  and  since  so  many  tunes  re- 
peated, ought  to  be  utterly  abandoned. 

You  wished  that  I  should  recall  to  you  the  gran- 
deurs of  Catholicism  in  its  finest  epoch.  I  thank 
you  for  it.  Some  associations  of  childhood,  the 
most  profound  of  all,  attach  me  to  Catholicism  ; 
and,  although  I  am  separated  from  it,  I  am  often 
tempted  to  say,  as  Job  said  (at  least  in  our  Latin 
version),  ""  Etiam  si  occlderet  me^  m  ipso  sperabo.^^ 
This  great  Catholic  family  is  too  numerous  not  to 
have  still  a  grand  future.  The  strange  excesses 
which  it  has  supported  during  fifty  years,  this  un- 
equalled pontificate   of  Pius  IX.,  the   most  aston- 


134  ENGLISH   CONFEHENCES. 

isliing  in  history,  cannot  be  terminated  in  any 
ordinary  way.  There  will  be  thnnders  and  light- 
nings snch  as  accompany  all  the  great  jndgment- 
days  of  God.  And  will  she  have  much  to  do  in 
order  to  still  remain  acceptable  to  those  who  love 
her,  —  this  old  mother,  who  will  not  die  so  soon  ? 
Perhaps  she  will  find,  in  order  to  arrest  the  arms 
of  her  conqneror,  which  is  modern  reason,  some 
magician's  arts,  some  words  such  as  Balder  mur- 
mured. 

The  Catholic  Church  is  a  woman  :  let  us  dis- 
trust the  charming  words  of  her  agony.  Let  us 
imagine  that  she  says  to  us,  "My  children,  every 
thing  here  below  is  but  a  symbol  and  a  dream. 
In  this  world  there  is  only  one  little  ray  of  light 
which  pierces  the  darkness,  and  seems  to  be  the 
reflection  of  a  benevolent  will.  Come  into  my 
bosom,  where  one  finds  forgetfulness-  For  those 
who  wish  fetishes,  1  have  them ;  to  those  who 
wish  works,  I  offer  them ;  for  those  who  wish  in- 
toxication of  heart,  I  have  the  milk  of  my  breast, 
which  will  make  drunk ;  for  those  who  desire  love, 
I  have  an  abundance ;  to  those  who  crave  irony, 
I  pour  out  freely.  Come  all :  the  time  of  dog- 
matic sadness  is  past.  I  have  music  and  incense 
for  your  funerals,  flowers  for  your  marriages,  the 
joyous  welcome  of  bells  for  your  new-born  ones." 
Ah,  well !  if  she  should  say  that,  our  embarrass- 
ment would  be  extreme.     But  she  never  will. 


KOTklE   AND   CHRISTIANITY.  135 

Your  great  and  glorious  England  lias  resolved, 
gentlemen,  the  practical  part  of  the  question.  It 
is  as  easy  to  trace  the  line  of  conduct  which  the 
state  and  individuals  should  follow  in  the  same 
matter,  as  it  is  impossible  to  arrive  at  a  theoretic 
solution  of  the  religious  problem.  All  this  may 
be  conveyed  in  a  single  word,  gentlemen,  —  lib- 
erty. What  could  be  more  simple  ?  Faith  does 
not  control  itself.  We  believe  what  we  believe 
true.  No  one  is  bound  to  believe  what  he  thinks 
false,  whether  it  is  false  or  not.  To  deny  liberty  of 
thought  is  a  sort  of  contradiction.  From  liberty 
of -thought  to  the  right  to  express  one's  thought, 
there  is  but  one  step ;  for  right  is  the  same  for  all. 
I  have  no  right  to  prevent  a  person  from  express- 
ing his  mind;  but  no  one  has  the  right  to  prevent 
me  from  expressing  mine.  Here  is  a  theory  which 
will  appear  very  humble  to  the  learned  doctors 
who  believe  themselves  to  be  in  possession  of 
absolute  truth.  We  have  a  great  advantage  over 
them,  gentlemen.  They  are  obliged  to  be  perse- 
cutors iii  order  to  be  consistent ;  to  us  it  is  per- 
mitted to  be  tolerant,  —  tolerant  for  all,  even  for 
those,  who,  if  they  could,  would  not  be  so  to  us. 
Yes,  let  us  even  make  this  paradox:  liberty  is  the" 
best  weapon  against  the  enemies  of  liberty.  Some 
fanatics  say  to  us  with  sincerity,  "  We  take  your 
liberty,  because  you  owe  it  to  us  according  to  your 
principles ;  but  you  shall  not  have  ours,  because 


136  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

we  do  not  owe  it  to  you."  All,  well !  let  us  give 
them  liberty  all  the  same,  and  we  do  not  imagine 
that  in  this  exchange  Ave  shall  be  duped.  No : 
liberty  is  the  great  dissolvent  of  all  fanaticisms. 
In  giving  back  liberty  to  my  eneni}^,  who  would 
sup23ress  me  if  he  had  the  power,  I  shall  really 
make  him  the  worst  gift.  I  oblige  him  to  drink  a 
strong  beverage  which  shall  turn  his  head,  while  I 
shall  keep  my  own.  Science  supports  the  strange 
regime  of  liberty :  fanaticism  and  superstition  do 
not  support  it.  We  do  more  harm  to  dogmatism 
by  treating  it  with  an  implacable  sweetness  than 
by  persecuting  it.  By  this  sweetness  we  even  in- 
culcate the  principle  which  destroys  all  dogmatism 
at  its  root,  by  understanding  that  all  metaphysical 
controversy  is  sterile,  and  that,  for  this  reason,  the 
truth  for  each  one  is  as  he  believes  it.  The  essen- 
tial, then,  is  not  to  silence  dangerous  teaching,  and 
hush  the  discordant  voice :  the  essential  is  to  place 
the  human  mind  in  a  state  in  which  the  mass  can 
see  the  uselessness  of  its  rage.  When  this  spirit 
becomes  the  atmosphere  of  society,  the  fanatic  can 
no  longer  live.  He  is  conquered  by  a  pervading 
gentleness.  If,  instead  of  conducting  Polyeuctus 
to  punishment,  the  Roman  magistrate  had  dis- 
missed him  smiling,  and  taken  him  amicably  by 
the  hand,  Polyeuctus  would  not  have  continued : 
perhaps  even  in  his  old  age  he  would  have  laughed 
at  his  escapade,  and  would  have  become  a  man  of 
good  sense. 


OONFEREE'OE, 

EoYAL  Academy,  London,  April  16,  1880. 


MARCUS   AURELIUS. 


CONFERENCE  AT  THE  ROYAL   INSTI- 
TUTION. 

MARCUS   AUEELIUS. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen,  —  I  have  accepted 
with  great  pleasure  the  mvitation  to  address  you 
in  this  illustrious  institution  devoted  to  the  noblest 
researches  of  science  and  of  true  philosophy.  I 
have  dreamed  since  my  childhood  of  this  island, 
where  I  have  so  many  friends,  and  which  I  visit 
so  tardily. 

I  am  a  Briton  of  France.  In  our  old  books, 
England  is  always  called  the  Island  of  the  Saints ; 
and,  in  truth,  all  our  saints  of  Armorican  Brittany, 
those  saints  of  doubtful  orthodoxy,  who,  if  they 
were  again  alive,  would  be  more  in  harmony  with 
us  than  with  the  Jesuits,  came  from  the  Island  of 
Britain.  I  have  seen  in  their  chapel  the  trough  of 
stone  in  which  they  crossed  the  sea.  Of  all  races, 
the  Britain  race  is  that  which  has  ever  taken  reli- 
gion the  most  seriously.  Even  when  the  progress 
of  reflection  has  shown  us  that  some  articles  among 
the  catalogues  of  things  which  we  have  always 
regarded  as  fixed  should  be  modified,  we  never 

139 


140  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

break  away  from  the  symbol  under  which  we  have 
from  the  first  approved  the  ideah 

For  our  faith  is  not  contained  in  obscure  meta- 
physical propositions:  it  is  in  the  affirmations  of 
the  heart.  I  have  therefore  chosen  for  my  dis- 
course to  you,  not  one  of  those  subtleties  which 
divide,  but  one  of  those  themes,  dear  to  the  soul, 
which  bring  nearer,  and  reconcile.  I  shall  speak 
to  you  of  that  book  resplendent  with  the  divine 
'spirit,  that  manual  of  submissive  life  which  the 
most  godly  of  men  has  left  us,  —  the  Csesar,  Mar- 
3^"Aurelius  Antonine.  It  is  the  glory  of  sover- 
eigns that  the  most  irreproachable  model  of  virtue 
may  be  found  in  their  ranks,  and  that  the  most 
beautiful  lessons  of  patience  and  of  self-control 
may  come  from  a  condition  which  one  naturally 
believes  to  be  subject  to  all  the  seductions  of  pleas- 
ure and  of  vanity.  ^ 

I. 

The  inheritance  of  wisdom  with  a  throne  is 
always  rare :  I  find  in  history  but  two  striking 
examples  of  it,  —  in  India,  the  succession  of  the 
three  Mongol  emperors,  Baber,  Hoomayoon,  and 
Akbar ;  at  Rome,  at  the  head  of  the  greatest  em- 
pire that  ever  existed,  the  two  admirable  reigns  of 
Antonine  the  Pious  and  Marcus  Aurelius.  Of  the 
last  two,  I  consider  Antonine  the  greatest.  His 
goodness  did  not  lead  him  into  faults :  he  was  not 


/ 


V  ■ 
M,'^  MARCUS   AURELIUS.  141 

tormented  with  that  mternal  trouble  which  dis- 
turbed without  ceasing  the  heart  of  his  adopted 
son.  This  strange  mahad}^  this  restless  study  of 
himself,  this  demon  of  scrupulousness,  this  fever 
of  perfection,  are  signs  of  a  less  strong  and  distin- 
guished nature.  As  the  finest  thoughts  are  those 
which  are  not  written,  Antonine  had  in  this  respect 
also  a  superiorit}^  over  Marcus  Aurelius.  But  let 
us  add  that  we  should  be  ignorant  of  Antonine,  if 
Marcus  Aurelius  had  not  transmitted  to  us  that 
exquisite  portrait  of  his  adopted  father,  in  which 
he  seems  to  have  applied  himself,  through  humility, 
to  painting  the  picture  of  a  better  man  than  him- 
self. 

It  is  he  who  has  sketched  in  the  first  book 
of  his  "  Thoughts,"  —  that  admirable  background 
where  the  noble  and  pure  forms  of  his  father, 
mother,  grandfather,  and  tutors,  move  in  a  celes- 
tial lis-ht.  Thanks  to  Marcus  Aurelius,  we  are 
able  to  understand  how  these  old  Roman  fami- 
lies, who  had  seen  the  reign  of  the  wicked  em- 
perors, still  retained  honesty,  dignity,  justice,  the 
civil,  and,  if  I  may  dare  to  sa}^  it,  the  republican 
spirit.  They  lived  there  in  admiratiun  of  Cato, 
of  Brutus,  of  Thrasea,  and  of  tlie  great  stoics 
whose  souls  had  never  bowed  under  tyranny. 
The  reign  of  Domitian  was  abhorred  by  them. 
The  sages  who  had  endured  it  without  subniission 
were   honored   as  heroes.     The   accession  of  the 


142  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

Antonines  was  only  the  coming  to  power  of  the 
society  of  sages,  of  whose  just  anger  Tacitus  has 
informed  us,  —  a  society  of  wise  men  formed  by 
the  league  of  all  those  who  had  revolted  against 
the  despotism  of  the  first  Csesars. 

The  salutary  principle  of  adoption  made  the 
imperial  court  of  the  second  century  a  true  cradle 
of  virtue.  The  noble  and  learned  Nerva,  in  estab- 
lishiDg  this  principle,  assured  the  happiness  of  the 
human  race  during  almost  a  hundred  years,  and 
gave  to  the  world  the  best  century  of  progress  of 
which  any  knowledge  has  been  preserved.  The 
sovereignty  thus  possessed  in  common  by  a  group 
of  choice  men  who  delegated  it  or  shared  it,  ac- 
cording to  the  needs  of  the  moment,  lost  a  part  of 
that  attraction  which  renders  it  so  dangerous. 

Men  came  to  the  throne  without  seeking  it,  but 
also  without  the  right  of  birth,  or  in  any  sense 
the  divine  right:  men  came  there  understanding 
themselves,  experienced,  having  been  long  pre- 
pared. The  empire  was  a  civil  burden  which 
each  accepted  in  his  turn,  without  dreaming  of 
hastening  the  hour.  Marcus  Aurelius  was  made 
emperor  so  young,  that  the  idea  of  ruling  had 
scarcely  occurred  to  him,,  and  had  not  for  a  mo- 
ment exercised  its  charm  upon  his  mind. 

At  eight  years,  when  he  was  already  prcesul  of 
the  Salian  priests,  Hadrian  remarked  this  sad 
child,   and  loved    him    for   his    good-nature,   his 


MARCUS   AURELIUS.  143 

docility,  and  his  incapability  of  falsehood.  At 
eighteen  years  the  empire  was  assured  to  hhn. 
He  awaited  it  patiently  for  twenty-two  years. 
The  evening  when  Antonine,  feeling  himself 
about  to  die,  after  having  given  to  the  tribune 
the  watchword,  JEquanimitas,  commanded  the 
golden  statue  of  Fortune,  which  was  always  in 
the  apartment  of  the  emperor,  to  be  borne  into 
that  of  his  adopted  son,  he  experienced  neither 
surprise  nor  joy. 

He  had  long  been  sated  with  all  joys,  without 
having  tasted  them  :  he  had  seen  the  absolute 
vanity  of  them  by  the  profoundness  of  his  phi- 
losophy. 

The  great  inconvenience  of  practical  life,  and 
that  which  renders  it  insupportable  to  a  superior 
man,  is,  that,  if  one  carries  into  it  the  principles 
of  the  ideal,  talents  become  defects ;  so  that  very 
often  the  accomplished  man  is  less  successful  in 
it  than  one  who  is  fitted  by  egotism  or  ordinary 
routine.  Three  or  four  times  the  virtue  of  Marcus 
Aurelius  came  near  being  his  ruin.  The  first 
fault  into  which  it  led  him  was  that  of  sharing 
the  empire  with  Lucius  Verus,  to  whom  he  was 
under  no  obligation.  Verus  was  a  frivolous  and 
worthless  man.  Prodigies  of  goodness  and  deli- 
cacy were  necessary  in  order  to  prevent  his  com- 
mitting disastrous  follies.  The  wise  emperor, 
earnest   and    industrious,   took  with  him   in   his 


144  ENGLISH   CONFEEENCES. 

lectica  (sedan)  the  senseless  colleague  whom  he 
had  given  hhnself.  He  persisted  in  treating  him 
seriously :  he  never  once  revolted  against  this 
sorry  companionship.  Like  all  well-bred  men, 
Marcus  Aurelius  discommoded  himself  continu- 
ally :  his  manners  came  from  a  general  habit  of 
firmness  and  dignitj^  Souls  of  tliis  kind,  either 
from  respect  for  human  nature,  or  in  order  not  to 
wound  others,  resign  themselves  to  the  appear- 
ance of  seeing  no  evil.  Their  life  is  a  perpetual 
dissimulation. 

According  to  some,  he  even  deceived  himself, 
since,  in  his  intimate  intercourse  with  the  gods, 
on  the  borders  of  the  Granicus,  speaking  of  his 
unworthy  wife,  he  thanked  them  for  having  given 
him  a  wife  "  so  amiable,  so  affectionate,  so  pure." 
I  have  shown  elsewhere  that  the  patience,  or,  if 
one  chooses,  the  weakness,  on  this  point,  of  Marcus 
Aurelius,  has  been  somewhat  exaggerated.  Faus- 
tina had  faults :  the  greatest  one  was  that  she  dis- 
liked the  friends  of  her  husband ;  and,  as  these 
friends  wrote  history,  she  has  paid  the  penalty 
before  posterity.  But  a  discriminating  critic  has 
no  trouble  in  showing  the  exaggerations  of  the 
legend.  Every  thing  indicates  that  Faustina  at 
first  found  happiness  and  love  in  that  villa  at 
Lorium,  or  in  that  beautiful  retreat  at  Lanuvium 
upon  the  highest  points  of  the  Alban  mount, 
which   Marcus   Aurelius    described  to  his   tutor 


MAKCUS   ATJRELITJS.  145 

Fronto  as  an  abode  full  of  the  purest  joys. 
Then  she  became  weary  of  too  much  wisdom. 
Let  us  tell  all :  the  beautiful  sentences  of  Marcus 
Aurelius,  his  austere  virtue,  his  perpetual  mel- 
ancholy, might  have  become  tiresome  to  a  young 
and  capricious  woman  possessed  of  an  ardent  tem- 
perament and  marvellous  beauty.  He  understood 
it,  suffered  it,  and  spoke  not.  Faustina  remained 
always  his  "  very  good  and  very  faithful  wife." 
No  one  succeeded,  even  after  her  death,  in  per- 
suading him  to  give  up  this  pious  lie.  In  a  bas- 
relief  which  is  still  seen  in  the  Museum  of  the 
Capitol  at  Rome,  while  Faustina  is  borne  to  heaven 
by  a  messenger  of  the  gods,  the  excellent  emperor 
regards  her  with  a  look  full  of  love.  It  seems 
that  at  last  he  had  deceived  himself,  and  forgotten 
all.  But  through  what  a  struggle  he  must  have 
passed  in  order  to  do  this!  During  long  years, 
a  sickness  at  heart  slowly  consumed  him.  The 
desperate  effort  which  was  the  essence  of  his 
philosophy,  t^s  frenzy  of  renunciation,  carried 
sometimes  even  to  sophism,  concealed  an  immense 
wound  at  the  bottom.  How  necessary  it  must 
have  been  to  bid  adieu  to  happiness  in  order  to 
reach  such  an  excess !  No  one  will  ever  under- 
stand all  that  this  poor  wounded  heart  suffered, 
the  bitterness  which  that  pale  face  concealed, 
always  calm,  always  smiling.  It  is  true  that  the 
farewell  to  happiness  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom 


146  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

\  and  the  surest  means  of  finding  peace.     There  is 
\  nothing  so  sweet  as  the  return  of  joy  which  fol- 
lows the  renunciation  of  joy;  nothing  so  keen,  so 
profound,  so  charming,  as  the  enchantment  of  the 
disenchanted. 

Some  historians,  more  or  less  imbued  with  that 
policy  which  believes  itself  to  be  superior,  because 
it  is  not  suspected  of  any  philosophy,  have  natu- 
rally sought  to  prove  that  so  accomjDlished  a  man 
was  a  bad  administrator  and  a  mediocre  sovereign. 
It  appears,  in  fact,  that  Marcus  Aurelius  sinned 
more  than  once  by  too  much  lenity.  But  never 
was  there  a  reign  more  fruitful  in  reforms  and 
progress.  The  public  charity  founded  by  Nerva 
and  Trajan  was  admirably  developed  by  him. 
New  schools  were  established  for  poor  children; 
the  superintendents  of  provisions  became  function- 
aries of  the  first  rank,  and  were  chosen  with 
extreme  care  ;  while  the  wants  of  poor  young  girls 
were  cared  for  by  the  Institute  of  Jeunes  Fausti- 
niennes.  The  principle  that  the  state  has  duties  in 
some  degree  paternal  towards  its  members  (a  prin- 
ciple which  should  be  remembered  with  gratitude, 
even  when  it  has  been  dispensed  with),  —  this  prin- 
ciple, I  say,  was  proclaimed  for  the  first  time  in 
the  world  by  Trajan  and  his  successors.  Neither 
the  puerile  pomp  of  Oriental  kingdoms,  founded 
on  the  baseness  and  stupidity  of  men,  nor  the 
pedantic  pride   of  the   kingdoms   of  the   middle 


MAECUS   AURELIUS.  147 

ages,  founded  on  an  exaggerated  sentiment  for 
hereditary  succession,  and  on  a  simple  faith  in  the 
rights  of  blood,  could  give  an  idea  of  the  utterly 
republican  sovereignty  of  Nerva,  Trajan,  Hadrian, 
Antonine,  and  Marcus  Aurelius. 

Nothing  of  the  prince  by  hereditary  or  divine 
right,  nothing  of  the  military  chieftain :  it  was  a 
sort  of  grand  civil  magistracy,  without  resembling 
a  court  in  any  way,  or  depriving  the  emperor  of 
his  private  character.  Marcus  Aurelius,  in  par- 
ticular, was  neither  much  nor  little  a  king  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  word.  His  fortune  was  immense, 
but  all  employed  for  good :  his  aversion  for  "  the 
Csesars,"  whom  he  considered  as  a  species  of  Sar- 
danapali,  magnificent,  debauched,  and  cruel,  burst 
out  at  each  instant.  The  civility  of  his  manners 
was  extreme.  He  gave  to  the  Senate  all  its  an- 
cient importance  :  when  he  was  at  Rome,  he  never 
missed  a  session,  and  left  his  place  only  when  the 
Consul  had  pronounced  the  formula,  '''Nihil  vos 
mormnar^  patres  conscripti.''''  Almost  every  year 
of  his  reign  he  made  war,  and  he  made  it  well, 
although  he  found  in  it  only  ennui.  His  listless 
campaigns  against  the  Quadi  and  Marcomanni 
were  very  well  conducted:  the  disgust  which  he 
felt  for  them  did  not  prevent  his  most  conscien- 
tious attention  to  them.  It  was  in  the  course  of 
one  of  these  expeditions,  that,  encamped  on  the 
banks  of  the  Granicus,  in  the  midst  of  the  monoto 


148  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

nous  plains  of  Hungary,  he  wrote  tlie  most  beau- 
tiful pages  of  the  exquisite  book  which  has  re- 
vealed his  whole  soul  to  us.  It  is  probable,  that, 
when  verj  young,  he  kept  a  journal  of  his  secret 
thoughts.  He  inscribed  there  the  maxims  to 
which  he  had  recourse  in  order  to  fortify  himself, 
the  reminiscences  of  his  favorite  authors,  the  pas- 
sages of  the  moralists  which  appealed  most  to  him, 
the  principles  which  had  sustained  him  through 
the  day,  sometimes  the  reproaches  which  his  scru- 
pulous conscience  addressed  to  him.  "  One  seeks 
for  himself  solitary  retreats,  rustic  cottages,  sea- 
shore, or  mountains :  like  others,  thou  lovest  to 
dream  of  these  good  things.  To  what  end,  since 
it  is  permitted  to  thee  to  retire  within  thy  soul 
each  hour?  Man  has  nowhere  a  more  tranquil 
retreat,  above  all,  if  he  has  within  himself  those 
things,  the  contemplation  of  which  will  calm  him. 
Learn,  then,  how  to  enjoy  this  retreat,  and  there 
renew  thy  strength.  Let  there  be  there  those 
short  fundamental  maxims,  which  above  all  will 
give  again  serenity  to  thy  soul,  and  restore  thee  to 
a  state  in  which  to  support  with  resignation  the 
world  to  which  thou  shouldest  return." 

During  the  sad  winters  of  the  North,  this  conso- 
lation became  still  more  necessary  to  him.  He 
was  nearly  sixty  years  old:  old  age  was  prema- 
ture with  him.  One  evening  all  the  pictures  of 
his  pious  youth  returned  to  his  remembrance,  and 


MARCUS   AURELIUS.  149 

he  passed  some  delicious  hours  in  calculating  how 
much  he  owed  to  each  one  of  the  virtuous  beings 
who  had  surrounded  him. 

"Examples  of  my  grandfather  Yerus,  —  sweet- 
ness of  manners,  unchangeable  patience." 

"  Qualities  which  one  valued  in  my  father,  the 
souvenir  which  he  has  left  me,  —  modesty,  manly 
character." 

"To  imitate  the  piety  of  my  mother,  her  be- 
nevolence; to  abstain,  like  her,  not  only  from 
doing  evil,  but  from  conceiving  the  thought  of  it ; 
to  lead  her  frugal  life,  which  so  little  resembled 
the  habitual  luxury  of  the  rich." 

Tlien  appeared  to  him,  in  turn,  Diagnotus,  who 
had  inspired  him  with  a  taste  for  philosophy,  and 
made  agreeable  to  his  eyes  the  pallet,  the  covering 
made  of  a  simple  skin,  and  all  the  apparel  of  Hel- 
lenic discipline ;  Junius  Rusticus,  who  taught 
him  to  avoid  all  affectation  of  elegance  in  style, 
and  loaned  him  the  Conversations  of  Epictetus; 
ApoUonius  of  Ch'alcis,  who  realized  the  Stoic  ideal 
of  extreme  firmness  and  perfect  sweetness  ;  Sextus 
of  Chaeroneia,  so  grave  and  so  good ;  Alexander 
the  grammarian,  who  censured  with  such  refined 
politeness ;  Fronto,  "  who  taught  him  the  envy, 
duplicity,  and  hypocrisy  of  a  tyrant,  and  the  hard- 
ness which  may  exist  in  the  heart  of  a  patrician ;  " 
his  brother  Severus,  "  who  made  him  understand 
Thrasia,  Helvidius,  Cato,  Brutus,  who  gave   him 


150  ENGLISH  CONFEKENCES. 

the  idea  of  what  a  free  government  is,  where  the 
rule  is  the  natural  equality  of  the  citizens  and  the 
equality  of  their  rights ;  of  a  royalty  which  places 
before  all  else  the  respect  for  the  liberty  of  the 
ctizens ; "  and,  rising  above  all  others  in  his  im- 
maculate grandeur,  Antonine,  his  father  by  adop- 
tion, whose  picture  he  traces  for  us  with  redoubled 
gratitude  and  love.  "  I  thank  the  gods,"  said  he 
finally,  "  for  having  given  me  good  ancestors,  good 
parents,  a  good  sister,  good  teachers,  and  in  my 
surroundings,  in  my  relations,  in  my  friends,  men 
almost  all  filled  with  goodness.  I  never  allowed 
myself  to  be  wanting  in  deference  towards  them : 
from  my  natural  disposition,  I  could  sometimes 
have  shown  irreverence ;  but  the  benevolence  of 
the  gods  never  permitted  the  occasion  to  present 
itself.  I  am  also  indebted  to  the  gods,  who  pre- 
served pure  the  flower  of  my  youth,  for  having 
been  reared  under  the  rule  of  a  prince,  and  a 
father  who  strove  to  free  my  soul  from  all  trace  of 
pride,  to  make  me  understand  that  it  is  possible, 
while  living  in  a  palace,  to  dispense  with  guards, 
with  splendid  clothes,  with  torches,  with  statues, 
to  teach  me,  in  short,  that  a  prince  can  almost 
contract  his  life  within  the  limits  of  that  of  a 
simple,  citizen,  without,  on  that  account,  showing 
less  nobility  and  vigor  when  he  comes  to  be  an 
emperor,  and  transact  the  affairs  of  state.  The}^ 
gave  me  a  brother,  whose  manners  were  a  con- 


MAKCUS   AURELTUS.  151 

tinual  exhortation  to  watch  over  myself,  while  his 
deference  and  attachment  should  have  made  the 
joy  of  my  heart. 

"■  Thanks  to  the  gods  again,  that  I  have  made 
haste  to  raise  those  who  have  cared  for  my  educa- 
tion, to  the  honors  which  they  seemed  to  desire. 
They  have  enabled  me  to  understand  ApoUonius, 
Rusticus,  Maximus,  and  have  held  out  to  me,  sur- 
rounded with  brilliant  light,  the  picture  of  a  life 
conformed  to  nature.     I  have  fallen  short  of  it  in 
the  end,  it  is  true  ;  but  it  is  my  fault.     If  my  body 
has  long  supported  the  rude  life  which  I  lead ;  if, 
in  spite  of  my  frequent  neglect  of  Rusticus,  I  have 
never  overstepped  the  bounds,  or  done  any  thing 
of  which  I  should  repent ;  if  my  mother,  who  died 
young,  was   able,  nevertheless,  to   pass   her  last 
years  near  me ;  if,  whenever  I  have  wished  to  suc- 
cor the  poor  or  afflicted,  money  has  never  been 
wanting;  if  I  have  never  needed  to  accept  any 
thing  from  others ;  if  I  have  a  wife  of  an  amiable, 
affectionate,  and  pure  character ;  if  I  have  found 
many  capable  men  for  the  education  of  my  chil- 
-  dren ;  if,  at  the  beginning  of  my  passion  for  phi- 
losophy, I  did  not  become  the  prey  of  a  sophist,  — 
it  is  to  the  gods  that  I  owe  it  all.     Yes,  so  many 
blessings  could  only  be  the  result  of  the  aid  of  the 
gods  and  a  happy  fortune." 

This  divine  candor  breathes  in  every  page.     No 
one  has  ever  written  more  simply  than  did  he  for 


152  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

the  sole  purpose  of  nnburdening  his  heart  to  God, 
his  only  witness.     There  is  not  a  shadow  of  system 
in  it.     Marcus  Aurelius,  to  speak  exactly,  had  no 
philosophy :  although  he  owed  almost  every  thing  ' 
to  stoicism  transformed  by  the  Roman  spirit,  it  is 
of  no  school.     According  to  our  idea,  he  has  too ' 
little  curiosity ;  for  he  knows  not  all  that  a  con- 
temporary of  Ptolemy  and  Galen  should  know :  he 
Jias   some  opinions  on  the  system  of  the  world, 
which  were  not  up  to  the  highest  science  of  his 
time.     But  his  moral  thought,  thus  detached  from 
all   alliance   with   a    system,   reaches   a   singular 
height.     The   author   of  the   book,  "The   Imita- 
tion," himself,  although  free  from  the  quarrels  of 
the  schools,  does  not  rise  to  this,  for  his  manner 
of  feeling  is  essentially  Cliristian.     Take  away  his 
Christian  dogmas,  and  his  book  retains  only  a  por- 
tion of  its  charm.     The  book  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  \ 
having  no  dogmatic  base,  preserves  its  freshness 
eternally.     Every  one,  from  the  atheist,  or  he  who 
believes  himself  one,  to  the  man  who  is  the  most 
devoted  co  the  especial  creeds  of  each  worship,  can 
find  in  it  some  fruits  of  edificatiojcL_    It  is  the  most 
purely  human  book  which  exists.     It  deals  with 
no  question  of  controversy.     In  theology,  Marcus 
Aurelius   floats   between  pure  Deism,  Polytheism 
interpreted  in  a  physical  sense  according  to  the 
manner    of    the    Stoics,    and    a    sort    of    cosmic 
Pantheism.     He  holds  not  much  more  firmly  to 


MARCUS   AURELTUS.  153 

one  hypothesis  than  to  the  other,  and  he  uses  in- 
discrimmately  the  three  vocabularies  of  the  Deist, 
Polytheist,  and  Pantheist.  His  considerations 
have  always  two  sides,  according  as  God  and  the 
soul  have,  or  have  not,  reality.  It  is  the  reason- 
ing which  we  do  each  hour ;  for,  if  the  most  com- 
plete Materialism  is  right,  we  who  have  believed 
in  truth  and  goodness  shall  be  no  more  duped 
than  others.  If  Idealism  is  right,  we  have  been 
the  true  sages,  and  we  have  been  wise  in  the  only 
manner  which  becomes  us,  that  is  to  say,  with  no 
selfish  waiting,  without  having  looked  for  a  re- 
muneration. 

IT. 

We  here  touch  a  great  secret  of  moral  philoso- 
phy and  religion.  Marcus  Aurelius  has  no  specu- 
lative philosophy;  his  theology  is  utterly  contra- 
dictory ;  he  has  no  idea  founded  upon  the  soul 
and  immortality.  How  could  he  be  so  moral 
without  the  beliefs  that  are  now  regarded  as  the 
foundations  of  morality  ?  how  so  profoundly  reli- 
gious, without  having  professed  one  of  the  dogmas 
of  what  is  called  natural  religion?  It  is  unpor- 
tant  to  make  this  inquiry. 

The  doubts,  which,  to  the  view  of  speculative 
reason,  hover  above  the  truths  of  natural  religion, 
are  not,  as  Kant  has  admirably  shown,  accidental 
doubts,  capable  of  being  removed,  belonging,  as  is 


154  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

sometimes  imagined,  to  certain  conditions  of  the 
human  mind.  These  doubts  are  inherent  to  the 
nature  even  of  these  truths,  if  one  may  say  it  with- 
out a  paradox ;  and,  if  these  doubts  were  removed, 
the  truths  with  which  they  quarrel  would  disap- 
pear at  the  same  time.  Let  us  suppose,  in  short, 
a  direct,  positive  proof,  evident  to  all,  of  future 
sufferings  and  rewards  :  where  will  be  the  merit 
of  doing  good?  They  would  be  but  fools  whom 
gayety  of  heart  should  hasten  to  damnation.  A 
crowd  of  base  souls  would  secure  their  salvation 
without  concealment;  they  would,  in  a  sense, 
force  the  divine  power.  Who  does  not  see,  that, 
in  such  a  system,  there  is  neither  morality  nor 
religion?  In  the  moral  and  religious  order  it  is 
indispensable  to  believe  without  demonstration. 
It  deals  "not  with  certainty :  it  acts  by  faith.  This 
is  what  Deism  forgets,  with  its  habits  of  intemper- 
ate afQrmation.  It  forgets  that  creeds  too  precise 
concerning  human  destiny  would  destroy  all  moral 
merit.  For  us,  they  would  say  that  we  should  do 
as  did  St.  Louis  when  he  was  told  of  the  miracu- 
lous wafer,  —  we  should  refuse  to  see  it.  What 
need  have  we  of  these  brutal  proofs  which  tram- 
mel our  liberty  ? 

We  should  fear  to  become  assimilated  to  those 
speculators  in  virtue,  or  those  vulgar  cowards, 
who  mingle  with  spiritual  things  the  gross  selfish- 
ness of  practical  life.     In  the  days  which  followed 


MARCUS   AURELIUS.  155 

the  belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  this  senti- 
ment was  manifested  in  the  most  touching  man- 
ner. The  faithful  in  heart,  the  sensitive  ones, 
preferred  to  believe  without  seeing.  "Blessed 
are  they  that  have  not  seen,  and  yet  have  be- 
lieved," became  the  word  for  the  time.  Charming 
words !  Eternal  symbol  of  tender  and  generous 
Idealism,  which  has  a  horror  of  touching  with  the 
hands  that  which  should  only  be  seen  with  the 
heart ! 

Our  good  Marcus  Aurelius,  on  this  point  as  on 
all  others,  was  in  advance  of  the  ages.  He  never 
cared  to  argue  with  himself  concerning  God  and 
the  soul.  As  if  he  had  read  the  "  Criticism  of 
Practical  Reason,"  he  saw  clearly,  that,  where  the 
,Jnfimte_J^XOjQcerned,  nO-  formula  is  absolute ; 
and  that,  in  such  matters,  one  has  no  chance  of 
seeing  the  truth  during  his  life,  without  much 
self-contradiction.  He  distinctly  separates  moral 
Keauty  from  all  theoretical  theology.  He  allows 
duty  to  depend  on  no  metaphysical  opinion  of  the 
First  Cause.  The  intimate  union  with  an  unseen 
god  was  never  carried  to  a  more  unheard-of  deli- 
cacy. "  To  offer  to  the  government  of  God  that 
which  is  withiu  thee, — a  strong  being  ripened  by 
age,  a  friend  of  the  public  good,  a  Roman,  an  em- 
peror, a  soldier  at  his  post  awaiting  the  signal  of 
the  trumpet,  a  man  ready  to  quit  life  without 
regret."     "  There  are  many  grains  of  incense  des- 


156  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

tined  to  the  same  altar :  one  falls  sooner,  the  other 
later,  in  the  fire ;  but  the  difference  is  nothing." 
"  Man  should  live  according  to  nature  during  the 
few  days  that  are  given  him  on  the  earth,  and, 
when  the  moment  of  leaving  it  comes,  should 
submit  himself  sweetly,  as  an  olive,  which,  in 
falling,  blesses  the  tree  which  has  produced  it, 
and  renders  thanks  to  the  branch  which  has  borne 
it."  "  All  that  which  thou  arrangest  is  suited  to 
me,  O  Cosmos  !  Nothing  of  that  which  comes 
from  thee  is  premature  or  backward  to  me.  I 
find  my  fruit  in  that  which  thy  seasons  bear,  O 
Nature  I  From  thee  comes  all ;  in  thee  is  all  j  to 
thee  all  returns."  "  O  man !  thou  hast  been  a 
citizen  in  the  great  city:  what  matters  it  to  thee 
to  have  remained  three  or  five  years?  That 
which  is  governed  by  laws  is  unjust  for  no  one. 
What  is  there,  then,  so  sorrowful  in  being  sent 
from  the  city,  not  by  a  tyrant,  not  by  an  unjust 
judge,  but  by  the  same  nature  which  allowed  thee 
to  enter  there?  It  is  as  if  a  comedian  is  dis- 
charged from  the  theatre  by  the  same  prsetor  who_ 
engaged  him.  But  wilt  thou  say,  '  I  have  not 
played  the  five  acts ;  I  have  played  but  three  ? ' 
Thou  say  est  well ;  but  in  life  three  acts  suffice 
to  complete  the  entire  piece.  .  .  .  Go,  then,  con- 
tent, since  he  who  dismisses  thee  is  content." 

Is  this  to  say  that  he  never  revolted  against  the 
strange  fate  which  leaves  man  alone  face  to  face 


MAECUS   AUEELIUS.  157 

with  the  needs  of  devotion,  of  sacrifice,  of  hero- 
ism, and  nature  with  its  transcendent  immorality, 
its  supreme  disdain  for  virtue?  No.  Once  at 
least  the  absurdity,  the  colossal  iniquity,  of  death, 
strikes  him.  But  soon  his  temperament,  com- 
pletely mortified,  resumes  its  power,  and  he  be- 
comes calm.  ''  How  happens  it  that  the  gods,  who 
have  ordered  all  things  so  well,  and  with  so  much 
love  for  men,  should  have  forgotten  one  thing 
only;  that  is,  that  men  of  tried  virtue,  who 
during  their  lives  have  had  a  sort  of  interchange 
of  relations  with  divinity,  who  have  made  them- 
selves loved  by  it  on  account  of  their  pious  acts 
and  their  sacrifices,  live  not  after  death,  but  may 
be  extinguished  forever  ? 

"Since  it  is  so,  be  sure,  that,  if  it  should  be 
otherwise,  they  (the  gods)  would  not  have  failed ; 
for,  if  it  had  been  just,  it  would  have  been  pos- 
sible;  if  it  had  been  suitable  to  nature,  nature 
would  have  permitted  it.  Consequently,  when 
it  is  not  thus,  strengthen  thyself  in  this  con- 
sideration, that  it  was  not  necessary  that  it  should 
be  thus.  Thou  thyself  seest  plainly  that  to  make 
such  a  demand  is  to  dispute  his  right  with  God. 
Now,  we  would  not  thus  contend  with  the  gods 
if  they  were  not  absolutely  good  and  absolutely 
just:  if  they  are  so,  they  have  allowed  nothing 
to  make  a  part  of  the  order  of  the  world  which 
is  contrary  to  justice  and  right." 


158  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

AH !  is  it  too  much  resignation,  ladies  and 
gentlemen  ?  If  it  is  veritably  thus,  we  have  the 
right  to  complain.  To  say,  that,  if  this  world  has 
not  its  counterpart,  the  man  who  is  sacrificed  to 
truth  or  right  ought  to  leave  it  content,  and 
absolve  the  gods,  —  that  is  too  naive.  No,  he  has 
a  right  to  blaspheme  them.  For,  in  short,  why 
has  his  credulity  been  thus  abused  ?  Why  should 
he  have  been  endowed  with  deceitful  instincts,  of 
which  he  has  been  the  honest  dupe  ?  Wherefore 
is  this  premium  given  to  the  frivolous  or  wicked 
man?  Is  it,  then,  he  who  is  not  deceived  who  is 
the  wise  man?  Then  cursed  be  the  gods  who  so 
adjudge  their  preferences !  I  desire  that  the 
future  may  be  an  enigma ;  but,  if  there  is  no 
future,  then  this  world  is  a  frightful  ambuscade. 
Take  notice  that  our  wish  is  not  that  of  the 
vulgar  clown.  We  wish  not  to  see  the  chastise- 
ment of  the  culpable,  nor  to  meddle  with  the 
interests  of  our  virtue.  Our  wish  has  no  selfish- 
ness :  it  is  simply  to  be,  to  remain  in  accord  with 
light,  to  continue  the  thought  we  have  begun,  to 
know  more  of  it,  to  enjoy  some  day  that  truth 
which  Ave  seek  with  so  much  labor,  to  see  the 
triumph  of  the  good  which  we  have  loved.  Noth- 
ing is  more  legitimate.  The  worthy  emperor, 
moreover,  was  also  sensible  of  it :  "  What !  the 
light  of  a  lamp  burns  until  the  moment  in  which 
it  is  extinguished,  and  loses  nothing  of  its  bril- 


MAECUS   AURELTUS.  159 

liancy,  and  the  truth,  justice,  temperance,  which 
are  in  thee  shall  be  extinguished  with  thee  I  "  All 
his  life  was  passed  in  this  noble  hesitation.  If  he 
sinned,  it  was  through  t6o  much  piety.  Less 
resigned,  he  would  have  been  more  just;  for 
surely  to  demand  that  there  should  be  an  inti- 
mate and  sympathetic  witness  of  the  struggles 
which  we  endure  for  goodness  and  truth  is  not 
to  ask  too  much. 

It  is  possible,  also,  that  if  liis  philosophy  had 
been  less  exclusively  moral,  if  it  had  implied  a 
more  curious  study  of  history  and  of  the  universe, 
it  would  have  escaped  a  certain  excessive  rigor. 
Like  the  ascetic  Christians,  Marcus  Aurelius  some- 
times carried  renunciation  to  dryness  and  subtlety. 
One  feels  that  this  calmness,  which  never  belies 
itself,  is  obtained  through  an  immense  effort. 
Certainly,  evil  had  never  an  attraction  for  him  ; 
he  had  no  passion  to  struggle  against.  "  Whatever 
one  may  do  or  say,"  writes  he,  "  it  is  necessary 
that  I  should  be  a  good  man;  as  the  emerald 
might  say,  '  Whatever  one  may  say  or  do,  I  must 
remain  an  emerald,  and  retain  my  color.'  "  But,  ii 
order  to  hold  one's  self  always  upon  the  icy  sum^ 
mit  of  stoicism,  it  is  necessary  to  do  cruel  violenc^ 
to  nature,  and  to  cut  away  from  it  more  than  on( 
noble  element.  This  perpetual  repetition  of  the! 
!<ame  reasoning,  the  thousand  figures  under  which 
he  seeks  to  represent  to  himself  the  vanity  of  all 


160  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

things,  these  frequently  artless  proofs  of  universal 
frivolity,  testify  to  strifes  which  he  has  passed 
through  in  order  to  extinguish  all  desire  in  him- 
self. At  times  we  fmd  in  it  something  harsh  and 
sad.  The  reading  of  Marcus  Aurelius^trengthe^s, 
but  it  does  not  console :  it  leaves  a  void^'in  the 
soul  which  is  at  once  cruel  and  delightful,  which 
one  would  not  exchange  for  full  satisfaction. 
Humility,  renunciation,  severity  towards  self,  were 
never  carried  further.  Glory  —  that  last  illusion 
of  great  souls  —  is  reduced  to  nothingness.  It  is 
needful  to  do  right  without  disturbing  one's  self 
as  to  whether  any  one  knows  that  we  do  it.  He 
perceives  that  history  will  speak  of  him  :  he  some- 
times dreams  of  the  men  of  the  past  with  whom 
the  future  will  associate  him.  "If  they  have 
only  played  the  part  of  tragic  actors,"  said  he, 
"  no  one  has  condemned  me  to  imitate  them." 
The  absolute  mortification  at  which  he  had  ar- 
rived had  destroyed  the  last  fibre  of  self-love  in 
him.    ""^'p^i,^  '  "  ''" '  ' 

The  consequences  ot  this  austere  philosophy 
might  have  been  hardness  and  obstinacy.  It  is 
here  that  the  rare  goodness  of  the  nature  of 
Marcus  Aurelius  shines  out  in  its  full  brilliancy. 
His  severity  is  only  for  himself.  The  fruit  of  this 
ofrea't  tension  of  soul  is  an  infinite  benevolence. 
All  his  life  was  a  study  of  how  to  return  good  for 
evil.      At  evening,  after  some  sad  experience  of 


MARCUS   AURELIUS.  161 

human  perversity,  he  wrote  only  as  follows :  "If 
thou  canst,  correct  them;  on  the  other  hand,  re-  i 
member  that  thou  shouldest  exercise  benevolence  1 
towards  those  who  have  been  given  to  thee.  The 
gods  themselves  are  benevolent  to  men :  they  aid 
them,  — ^'  so  great  is  their  goodness !  —  to  acquire 
health,  riches,  glory.  Thou  art  permitted  to  be 
like  the  gods."  Another  day,  some  one  was  very 
wicked ;  for  see  what  he  wrote  upon  his  tablets : 
"  Such  is  the  order  of  nature  :  men  of  this  sort  must 
act  thus  from  necessity.  To  wish  it  to  be  other- 
wise is  to  wish  that  the  fig-tree  shall  bear  no  figs. 
Remember,  thou,  in  one  word,  this  thing  :  in  a 
very  short  time  thou  and  he  will  die  ;  soon  after, 
your  names  even  will  be  known  no  more."  The 
thoughts  of  a  universal  pardon  recur  without 
ceasing.  At  times  a  scarcely  perceptible  smile  is 
mingled  with  this  charming  goodness,  —  "The  best 
method  of  avenging  one's  self  upon  the  wicked  is 
not  to  be  like  them  ;  "  or  a  light  stroke  of  pride,  — 
"  It  is  a  royal  thing  to  hear  evil  said  of  one's  self 
when  one  does  right."  One  day  he  thus  re- 
proached himself:  "  Thou  hast  forgotten,"  said  he, 
"what  holy  relationship  unites  each  man  to  the 
human  race,  —  a  relationship  not  of  blood,  or  of 
birth,  but  the  participation  in  the  same  intelli-  /- 
gence.  Thou  hast  forgotten  that  the  reasoning 
power  of  each  one  is  a  god,  derived  from  the 
Supreme  Being." 


162  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

In  the  business  of  life  he  was  always  exact, 
although  a  little  ingenuous,  as  very  good  men  usu- 
ally are.  The  nine  reasons  for  forbearance  which 
he  valued  for  himself  (book  xi.  art.  18)  show  us 
his  charming  good-nature  before  family  troubles, 
which  perhaps  came  to  him  through  his  unwor- 
thy son.  "  If,  upon  occasion,"  said  he  to  himself, 
"  thou  exhortest  him  quietly,  and  shalt  give  to  him 
without  anger  some  lessons  like  these,  — '  No,  my 
child ;  we  are  born  for  each  other.  It  is  not  I  who 
suffer  the  evil,  it  is  thou  who  doest  it  thyself,  my 
child  ! '  —  show  him  adroitly,  by  a  general  consider- 
ation, that  such  is  the  rule  ;  that  neither  the  bees, 
nor  the  animals  who  live  naturally  in  herds,  re- 
semble him.  Say  this  without  mockery  or  insult, 
with  an  air  of  true  affection,  with  a  heart  which  is 
not  excited  by  anger  ;  not  as  a  pedant,  not  for  the 
sake  of  being  admired  by  those  who  are  present ; 
think  only  of  him." 

Commodus  (if  it  was  for  him  that  he  thus  acted) 
was,  without  doubt,  little  touched  by  this  good 
paternal  rhetoric.  One  of  the  maxims  of  the  ex- 
cellent emperor  was,  that  the  wicked  are  unhappy,  I 
that  one  is  only  wicked  in  spite  of  himself,  and 
through  ignorance.  He  pitied  those  who  were  noti 
like  liimself :  he  did  not  believe  that  he  had  the 
right  to  obtrude  himself  upon  them. 

He  well  understood  the  baseness  of  men ;  but 
he  did  not  avow  it.     This  willing  blindness  is  the 


MARCUS   AURELIUS.  163 

defect  of  choice  spirits.  The  world  not  being  all 
that  they  could  wish,  they  lie  to  themselves  in 
order  not  to  see  it  as  it  is.  From  thence  arises  an 
expediency  in  their  judgments.  In  Marcus  Aure- 
lius,  this  expediency  sometimes  provokes  us  a  little. 
If  we  wished  to  believe  him,  his  instructors,  several 
of  whom  were  men  of  mediocrity,  were,  without 
exception,  superior  men.  One  would  say  that  every 
one  near  him  had  been  virtuous.  This  is  carried 
to  such  a  point,  that  one  is  forced  to  ask  if  the 
brother  for  whom  he  promouuces  such  a  grand 
eulogy  in  his  thanks  to  the  gods  was  not  his 
adopted  brother,  Lucius  Verus.  It  is  certain  that 
the  good  emperor  was  capable  of  strong  illusions 
when  he  undertook  to  lend  to  others  his  own  vir- 
tues. 

This  quality,  expressed  as  an  ancient  opinion, 
especially  by  the  pen  of  the  Emperor  Julian,, 
caused  him  to  commit  an  enormous  error,  which 
was  that  of  not  disinheriting  Commodus.  This  is 
one  of  those  things  which  it  is  easy  to  say  at  a 
distance,  when  there  are  no  obstacles  present,  and 
when  one  reasons  without  facts.  It  is  forgotten 
at  first  that  the  emperors,  who,  after  Nerva,  made 
adoption  so  fruitful  a  political  system,  had  no 
sons.  Adoption,  with  tl!e  exheredation  of  the  son 
or  grandson,  occurred  in  the  first  century  of  the 
empire  without  good  results.  Marcus  Aurelius 
was  evidently  from  principle  in  favor  of   direct 


164  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

inheritance,  in  which  he  saw  the  advantage  of  the 
prevention  of  competition. 

After  the  birth  of  Commodus,  in  161,  he  pre- 
sented him  alone  to  the  people,  although  he  had  a 
twin-brother :  he  frequently  took  him  in  his  arms 
and  renewed  this  act,  which  was  a  sort  of  procla- 
mation. In  166  Lucius  Verus  demanded  that  the 
two  sons  of  Marcus,  Commodus  and  Annius  Verus, 
should  be  made  Csesars.  In  172  Commodus 
shared  with  his  father  the  title  of  Germanicus.  In 
173,  after  the  repression  of  the  revolt  of  Avidius, 
the  Senate,  in  order  to  recognize  in  some  way  the 
family  disinterestedness  which  Marcus  Aurelius 
had  shown,  demanded  by  acclamation  the  empire 
and  the  tribunitial  power  for  Commodus. 

Already  the  natural  wickedness  of  the  latter 
had  betrayed  itself  by  more  than  one  symptom 
known  to  his  tutors ;  but  how  shall  one  foresee 
the  future  from  a  few  naughty  acts  of  a  child  of 
twelve  years?  In  176-177  his  father  made  him 
Imperator^  Consul,  Augustus.  This  was  certainly 
an  imprudence ;  but  he  was  bound  by  his  previous 
acts:  Commodus,  moreover,  still  restrained  him- 
self. In  later  years,  the  evil  completely  revealed 
itself.  On  each  page  of  the  last  books  of  the 
"  Thoughts,"  we  see  the  trace  of  the  martyr  with- 
in the  excellent  father,  of  the  accomplished  em- 
peror, who  saw  a  monster  growing  up  beside  him, 
ready  to  succeed  him,  and  to  take  in  every  thing 


MAECUS   AURELIUS.  165 

through  antipath}^  the  opposite  course  from  that 
which  he  had  believed  to  be  for  the  good  of  men. 
The  thought  of  disinheriting  Commodus  must, 
without  doubt,  have  come  often  to  Marcus  Aure- 
lius.  But  it  was  too  late.  After  having  associat- 
ed him  in  the  empire,  after  having  so  many  times 
proclaimed  him  to  the  legions  as  perfect  and  ac- 
complished, to  come  before  the  world  and  declare 
him  to  be  unworthy  would  be  a  scandal.  Marcus 
was  caught  in  his  own  phrases,  by  that  style  of 
benevolent  expediency  which  was  too  habitual 
with  him.  And,  after  all,  Commodus  was  only 
seventeen  years  old :  who  could  be  sure  that  he 
would  not  reform  ?  Even  after  the  death  of  Mar- 
cus Aurelius  this  was  hoped  for.  Commodus  at 
first  showed  the  intention  of  following  the  coun- 
sels of  meritorious  persons  with  whom  his  father 
had  surrounded  him. 

The  reproach  which  is  made,  then,  against 
Marcus  Aurelius,  is  not  that  of  not  having,  but  of 
having,  a  son.  It  was  not  his  fault  if  the  age 
could  not  support  so  much  wisdom.  In  philoso- 
phy, the  great  emperor  had  placed  the  ideal  of 
virtue  so  high,  that  no  one  would  care  to  follow 
him.  In  politics,  his  benevolent  optimism  had 
enfeebled  the  state  services,  above  all,  the  army. 
In  religion,  in  order  not  to  be  too  much  bound  by 
a  religion  of  the  state,  of  which  he  saw  the  weak- 
ness, he  prepared  the  great  triumph  of  the  nou- 


166  ENGLISH   CONFERENCES. 

official  worship,  and  left  a  reproach  to  hover  above 
his  memory,  —  unjust,  it  is  true;  but  even  its 
shadow  should  not  be  found  in  so  pure  a  life.  We 
touch  here  upon  one  of  the  most  delicate  points  in 
the  biography  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  It  is  unhap- 
pily certain,  that,  under  his  reign,  Christians  were 
condemned  to  death,  and  executed.  The  policy  of 
his  predecessors  had  been  firm  in' this  particular. 
Trajan,  Antonine,  Hadrian  himself,  saw  in  the 
Christians  a  secret  sect,  anti-social,  dreaming  of 
overturning  the  empire.  Like  all  men  true  to  the 
old  Roman  principles,  they  believed  in  the  neces- 
sity of  repressing  them.  There  was  no  need  of 
special  edicts :  the  laws  against  the  costus  illicitly  ^ 
the  illicita  collegia^  were  numerous.  The  Chris- 
tians fell  in  the  most  explicit  sense  under  the 
force  of  these  laws.  Truly,  it  would  have  been 
worthy  of  the  wise  emperor  who  introduced  so 
many  reforms  full  of  humanity,  to  suppress  the 
edicts  which  entailed  such  cruel  and  unjust  conse- 
quences. But  it  is  necessary  to  observe  primarily, 
that  the  true  spirit  of  liberty,  as  we  understand  it, 
was  not  then  understood  by  any  one ;  and  that 
Christianity,  when  it  was  master,  practised  it  no 
more  than  the  Pagan  emperors.  In  the  second 
place,  the  abrogation  of  the  laws  against  illicit 
societies  would  have  been  the  ruin  of  the  empire, 
founded  essentially  upon  the  principle  that  the 
state   ought   not   to   admit  within  its  bosom  any 


MAECUS   AURELIUS.  167 

society  differing  from  it.  The  principle  was  bad, 
according  to  our  ideas :  it  is  very  certain,  at  least, 
that  it  was  the  corner-stone  in  the  Roman  consti- 
tution. Marcus  Aurelius,  far  from  exaggerating 
it,  extenuated  it  with  all  his  powers ;  and  one  of 
the  glories  of  his  reign  is  the  extension  of  the 
right  of  association.  However,  he  did  not  go  to 
the  root :  he  did  not  completely  abolish  the  laws 
against  the  collegia  illicitae  and  in  the  provinces 
there  resulted  from  them  some  proi3esses  infinitely 
to  be  regretted.  The  reproach  which  can  be 
made  against  him  is  the  same  that  might  be  made 
to  the  rulers  of  our  day,  who  do  not  suppress 
with  a  stroke  of  the  pen  all  the  laws  restrictive  of 
the  liberties  of  re-imion,  of  association,  and  of  the 
press. 

From  the  distance  at  which  we  stand,  we  can 
see  that  Marcus  Aurelius,  in  being  more  com- 
pletely liberal,  would  have  been  wdser.  Perhaps 
Christianity  left  free  would  have  developed  in  a 
manner  less  disastrous  the  theocratic  and  absolute 
principle  which  was  in  it ;  but  one  cannot  reproach 
a  man  with  not  having  stirred  up  a  radical  revolu- 
tion on  account  of  a  prevision  of  what  would 
occur  several  centuries  after  him.  Trajan,  Ha- 
drian, Antonine,  Marcus  Aurelius,  could  not  know 
the  principles  of  general  history  and  political 
economy  which  have  been  understood  only  in 
our   time,  and  which  only  our    last   revolutions 


168  ENGLISH   CONFEEENCES. 

could  reveal.  In  any  case,  the  mansuetude  of  the 
good  emperor  was  in  this  respect  shielded  from  all 
reproach.  No  one  has  the  right  to  be  more  exact- 
iDg  in  this  respect  than  was  Tertullian.  "  Consult 
your  annals,"  said  he  to  the  Roman  magistrates. 
"  You  will  then  see  that  the  princes  who  have 
been  severe  towards  us  are  of  those  who  have 
held  to  the  honor  of  having  been  our  persecutors. 
On  the  contrary,  all  the  princes  who  have  respected 
divine  and  human  laws  include  but  one  who  per- 
secuted the  Christians.  We  can  even  name  one 
of  them  who  declared  himself  their  protector, — 
the  wise  Marcus  Aurelius.  If  he  did  not  openly 
revoke  the  edicts  against  our  brethren,  he 
destroyed  their  power  by  the  severe  penalties 
which  he  declared  against  their  accusers."  It  is 
necessary  to  remember  that  the  Roman  Empire 
was  ten  or  twelve  times  as  large  as  France,  and 
that  the  responsibility  of  the  emperor  was  very 
little  in  the  judgments  which  were  rendered  in 
the  provinces.  It  is  necessary,  moreover,  to  recall 
the  fact  that  Cliristianity  claimed  not  only  the 
liberty  of  worship :  all  the  creeds  which  tolerated 
ea  h  other  were  allowed  much  freedom  in  the  em- 
pire. Christianity  and  Judaism  were  the  excep-\ 
tions  to  this  rule  on  account  of  their  intolerance  / 
and  spirit  of  exclusion. 

We  have,  then,  good  reason  to  mourn  sincerely 
for    Marcus   Aurelius.      Under    him    philosophy 


MAKCUS   AURELIUS.  169 

reigned.  One  moment,  thanks  to  him,  the  world 
was  governed  by  the  best  and  greatest  man  of  his 
age.  Frightful  decadences  followed  ;  but  the  little 
casket  which  contained  the  ^'Thoughts"  on  the 
banks  of  the  Granicus  was  saved.  From  it  came 
forth  that  incomparable  book  in  which  Epictetus 
was  surpassed-,  that  Evangel  of  those  who  believe 
not  in  the  supernatural,  which  has  not  been  com- 
prehended until  our  day.  Veritable,  eternal  Evan- 
gel, the  book  of  "  Thoughts,"  which  Avill  never 
grow  old,  because  it  asserts  no  dogma.  The  virtue 
of  Marcus  Aurelius,  like  our  own,  rests  upon  rea- 
son, upon  nature.  St.  Louis  was  a  very  virtuous 
man,  because  he  was  a  Christian :  Marcus  Au- 
relius was  tlie  most  godly  of  men,  not  because  he 
was  a  Pagan,  but  because  he  was  a  gifted  man. 
He  was  the  honor  of  human  nature,  and  not  of  an 
established  religion.  Science  may  yet  destroy,  in 
appearance,  God  and  the  immortal  soul ;  but  the 
book  of  the  ''  Thoughts  "  will  still  remain  young 
Avith  life  and  truth. 

The  religion  of  Marcus  Aurelius  is  the  absolute- 
religion,  that  which  results  from  the  simple  fact 
of  a  high  moral  ccnsciencie  pUcecl,iia«;e',tQ  fa;ce  with 
the  universe.  It  is 'of  no  racei  inei'thfei.  of  any 
country.  No  revolution,,  no  change,^  no  discovery, 
will  have  power  f;0  i&lffici;  iti'  i  •    !','/'•/'    i     V      ^ I 


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